


Rose Gold Memory

by Glyphhunter



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Injury, Loss of Limbs, Voltron Gen Mini Bang 2018, Wilderness Survival, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glyphhunter/pseuds/Glyphhunter
Summary: He needs to get back. Back where it's safe and there's people to help him. Except…Shiro stares at the snow with growing horror. The headache looms, gaining strength the more he tries to recall. But therein lies the problem.He can't.He can't remember where he's supposed to be going. He needs to leave, get off this frozen planet and find someone. Something. But he can't recall who or what.Where is he supposed to go?





	1. Chase The Setting Sun

Shiro wakes up cold and disoriented and aching from head to toe. There’s a groaning creak of metal as he blinks his eyes open, the light from outside blinding white. He squints against the glare, takes in the ship around him, and groans in relief. 

He made it. He’s alive, whole, and relatively uninjured. He escaped.

He disentangles himself from the seat, tossing bits of hardware that broke loose in the crash. The escape pod is mostly on its side, doors stuck open by the snow. Some of it has drifted inward, sprinkling the wall and parts of the floor in white. The panels are dark, not even responding to his touch. Dead.

Useless. 

He curses under his breath and looks around before making his way out through the debris. Nothing jumps out that would be particularly useful, everything either damaged or unreachable. He needs to find help.

The first gust of wind tears his breath from his lungs, the cold a harsh slap in the face. He steps back inside to collect himself and brace against the chill. He tucks his hands under his arms and ducks his head to the wind before stepping out again. 

From the way the place looked on the way down, he doubts anyone saw him crash. He could be waiting for ages if he stuck around and that's not a chance he’s willing to take. Not right now. Not with the way the Galra are hanging around and if that's any indication, there has to be something on this planet worth while. 

He grunts under the force of another gust of wind. Snow swirls around him and Shiro can barely see ten feet in front of him. 

Maybe. He hopes there's something here.

He focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. Focuses on staying in a mostly straight line. As long as he keeps moving he’ll be fine. 

When the wind calms down for more than 30 seconds at a time, he breathes a sigh of relief. His shoulders drop from around his ears and he stretches the stiffness from his neck. 

The landscape is barren, ice and snow stretching for miles. He squints into the distance, trying to separate the shades of white and grey but they all blend into the next. No variation. No landmarks. Nothing. None that he can see anyway. He presses on, one step at a time through the snow that clings to his ankles. 

Maybe he should’ve stayed in the pod.

Hunger begins to gnaw at him first, a familiar pang that he thins his lips against and ignores. Unfortunately, there’s nothing here that can sate it. Thirst, though, there’s plenty he can do with that. There’s snow and ice as far as the eye can see. He glares down at it, giving the snow a forceful kick.

Why did he have to land on an ice planet? Something with a nice temperate forest would’ve been nice. It’d be so much easier to get food and shelter there. 

Shiro shakes the thought away with a heavy breath. There’s no use in dreaming of alternatives, he just has to make do. There’s no way he’s dying here. Not after everything he’s been through. 

He almost misses the dark spot on the horizon until he’s suddenly on top of it and he has to stop before he trips. The ground slopes down and around, the stone underneath visible through the drifted snow. It’s a crater, he thinks, judging from the large rock in the middle. But it’s what the rock is surrounded by that has Shiro’s heart leaping in his chest as he skids down the slope. 

Water splashes against his knees as he drops next to the edge and he doesn’t hesitate in dipping his hands in to drink. It’s the best damn thing he’s tasted since--

The headache spikes suddenly, a sharp pain that throbs across his temples. He hisses and drops the water to press his hands to his head, fingers digging into his hair. He closes his eyes against the pain with a groan, putting his head between his knees until it settles, low and constant behind his eyes. 

He hopes it’s not from the water. 

He blinks his eyes open, slow and tentative, sure that the light’s not going to help. He focuses on the water, on his reflection on the surface, and slowly lets out a breath. He runs a hand through his hair to pull the ends out of the pool as he sits back, the other dropping in his lap. He frowns at the water.

All he wanted was a drink. 

The headache seems to be fading though. And as much as he wants more, he doesn't want the pain to come back. He stares at the water for a few seconds, debating the merits, then huffs. 

There’s really not much of a debate. Get dehydrated and stay pain-free, or bite the bullet, suffer the pain, and take the drink. He can’t very well live without water. 

A clicking cry behind him almost startles him out of his skin and pretty much takes the decision out of his hands. He leaps to the side, barely dodging the sharp appendage that stabs into the ground. The other one comes right behind and Shiro scrambles backwards to keep out of reach.

It screeches at him, large and sightless with a heavy carapass protecting its body before charging. Shiro grits his teeth and runs. Maybe he invaded on its territory, he doesn’t know, but all he has is his hand and he’s not sure how well it’ll do against the shell. 

Something wraps around his ankle, too quick for him to slip away, and Shiro doesn’t even have time to gasp before he’s on the ground. His breath comes out in a rush, forced out by the landing, and then he’s dragged back towards the creature. 

_ Tentacles. _ This thing has tentacles, too. Awesome.

The sound of his hand powering on is a sharp whine in his ear as he strikes down on the cord of muscle around his leg. He scores a line in the side but all that seems to do is make it more angry. The grip tightens on his ankle and suddenly Shiro’s lifted and flung through the air. He gasps at the ground, trying to gain control as he flips, but he doesn’t even hit the ground before the other tentacle grabs him around the arm. 

The loss of momentum pulls a shout from him and with an ominous crack, he’s thrown in the other direction to the ground. He hits back first and rolls, the stone unforgiving as he tries to regain his stolen breath. 

He can hear it coming, the quick tapping on stone clear, even over his own breath wheezing in his throat. It’s a looming shadow out of the corner of his eye and Shiro scrambles to his feet. He can’t fight this right now. He doesn’t have the resources and his hand barely made a dent.

So he runs. He bolts for the edge of the crater and any stone that comes loose in his climb becomes a weapon. He manages to deflect the reaching tentacles through what feels like sheer luck. Each foot of distance he creates feels like its own small victory. The relief that washes through him when he drops over the edge only lasts until he hears the raged shriek echo through the air.

He tumbles through the snow, dragging himself to his feet to the clatter of stones as the creature tries to follow. The wind has picked up again, pulling snow with it and Shiro hopes it’s enough to cover his tracks before the beast reaches the top.

He doesn’t look back, his heart racing and blood rushing in his ears. Looking back would only slow him down and what he needs is speed. 

Speed, and a shit ton of luck.

* * *

The sounds eventually fade, drowned out by the howl of the wind. Shiro keeps his pace despite burning ache in his legs telling him to stop. He needs to keep moving, stay one step ahead. But the longer he goes, the more he wants to drop. Once again, visibility is practically nonexistent and, while it takes some maneuvering, he manages to get his arms crossed.

Which, actually, is a point of concern. It shouldn’t be this hard to move his arm. It really, really, shouldn’t be. He doesn’t know if it’s from the cold or the altercation with the creature earlier but it keeps… sticking, for lack of a better word. And with it being one of Haggar’s prized projects, he shouldn’t be having this problem.

It worries him. 

But there's nothing he can do about it while he's stuck in this frozen wasteland. He just has to keep going. Keep walking. He'll find something eventually. An abandoned building maybe, with a radio he can adjust and signal for a pick up. But then he'd have to account for the Galra nearby and try to evade them while he waited. He doesn't want to get recaptured before the– 

Pain spikes through his head, tearing a shout from him as his hands grip the sides. It blinds him, leaves him breathless. He can barely think beyond wondering where it came from and wanting it to stop. It feels like ages before it even starts to fade, vision coming back in spots. He's kneeling in the snow, he realizes, curled tight. Looking up through the haze sends another shot of pain through his skull.

This isn't normal. Headaches this sudden or this painful aren't anywhere near normal and he's never had them before. The Galra must've done something, messed with his head to cause something like this. But here, surrounded by snow and ice, it's impossible to tell. 

He needs to get back. Back where it's safe and there's people to help him. Except…

Shiro stares at the snow with growing horror. The headache looms, gaining strength the more he tries to recall. But therein lies the problem.

He can't.

He can't remember where he's supposed to be going. He needs to leave, get off this frozen planet and find someone. Some _ thing. _ But he can't recall who or what.

Where is he supposed to go?

Something shifts behind him, a shadow through the haze accompanied by the soft crunch of snow. It's barely discernible from everything else, but there's nothing when he looks. The snow whips by in clutch of the wind, blending everything together in one hazy white wall. Gone.

Anywhere but here, he decides as he lurches to his feet. His muscles protest the movement, every part of him sore, but he can't afford to stop again. It was a mistake to even take a break to begin with. Now he's lost valuable time and distance and he's no where close to finding anything he was looking for. Leaving the pod may have been too hasty a decision. Best head back, then.

He squints through the flurry of wind and snow, trying to remember which way he came. The crater is behind him though how far back is hard to tell. But he knows the way he left it isn't the same way he found it. 

He shoots a look over his shoulder, trying to see if he can pin the shadow following him. And it has to be following him, the feeling of eyes on his back hasn't left. But either the haze of snow is that thick or the landscape is just that blank. He can't see anything.

So he adjusts course, veers left in what he hopes is the direction of the pod in spite of what may or may not be following him. Finding shelter is more important. He's a fool for leaving in the first place. An idiot for thinking he could find something quickly in this weather. It’s an escape pod. They’re usually filled with things to help people survive. Like food. And water. And blankets. One of those would be nice. 

He hopes he’s got the right direction because he’s not going to find it otherwise. A quick look behind tells him how fast his tracks are disappearing. Any tracks he made before will be long gone. All he knows for certain is that it’s somewhat down hill. Of course, it’s impossible to tell where on the hill he is. He can barely tell up from down. 

He tightens the cross of his arms across his chest, ducking his chin to the cold. Just bet on his luck. It’s been doing him well enough so far. Maybe someone’s on his side for once. 

His foot catches on something in the snow, something that catches his other foot as well when he tries to compensate and it send him sprawling. The sudden cold in his face shocks a curse from him, loud and stuttering, and he quickly rights himself. 

What the fuck?

He swipes away the snow covering the culprit, using his hands at first before standing and using his feet. There's a line of stone embedded in the ground. He frowns at it, somewhat confused, and follows the line until it meets up with another. A corner. A  _ wall. _ He steps back and tries to follow the second line, looking for where the frame would sit.

Because these are ruins. And with the way cold and ice can preserve things, they're very,  _ very, _ old. Probably ancient. He sighs and lets his shoulders drop. This is so far beyond abandoned it doesn't even count anymore.

He walks the length of the wall, knowing he's not going to find anything but now he's curious. What kind of society lived in a place like this? What did the area even look like to make it possible? He turns and takes it in, the snow he shifted already being lifted and smoothed over.

But something catches his eyes, something strange that he darts for before the snow buries it again. A splash of colour in an otherwise blank landscape. He pulls it from the snow, frozen and stiff and he slowly spreads it out between his hands. It's torn and stained, but surprisingly whole. A length of cloth that must’ve come from a dress or a robe. 

“How?” he breathes, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. It’s colour is the thing that stands out, a bright sunshine yellow that somehow survived years, decades,  _ centuries _ even, under the snow. And something about it makes his heart clench in his chest. It’s familiar, warm, almost like home. What does it remind him of? 

He takes a deep breath and lets it rest in his lap. He doesn’t know, and the more he tries to pull on the feeling, the more his head starts to hurt again. He sighs and shakes the thought away, there’s no use trying. He doesn’t need a migraine on top of everything else right now. The water isn’t the cause of them, he guesses, but if his memories are, then there’s something else to worry about. 

He flexes the fabric until it’s not in danger of tearing before he wraps it around his Galra arm. He’ll hold onto it in case it does trigger a memory. He tucks the ends in as he stands, scanning the area for anything that might be trying to sneak up on him. The feeling’s still there, prickling at the back of his neck. Everything’s still white, though, and he can’t hear above the wind. He presses his lips together and keeps going, keeps heading in the direction of the pod. 

He hopes, anyway.

But he’s starting to get tired and it’s more than just being sore and wanting to rest. The snow is dragging on his feet. Every push of the wind is begging him to lay down. But he can’t stop. It doesn’t matter how long he’s been going. He can’t afford to quit here. Giving in means death and that…

That’s unacceptable. He’ll find the pod. He has to. 

He loses himself in the rhythm between one step and the next. He’s not sure how much time passes but it feels like an eternity and an instant before he realizes something’s changed. There’s a shadow on the horizon, not the pod unfortunately, and it spans as far as he can see. Which isn’t far, admittedly, but it’s something. 

But there’s something else, too, almost like the world has turned grey. Dim. 

Darker.

“Shit.” Shiro grits his teeth and forces his legs to move faster. He keeps going, even as the wind gets colder. The shadow warps with the snow, blending further the darker it gets. Whatever it is, Shiro needs to get there. The thermal of his suit has protected him so far but his face and hands are exposed. They're not going to last long against the cold of night.

He thinks he's getting closer because it's certainly gotten taller. He's not sure what he's going to do when he gets there but it'll be better than being out in the open. Unfortunately, he seems to be moving at the same pace as the darkening sky. Any definition he might've seen stays hidden.

Finding the pod at this point is a lost cause.

The wind howls at his back and whistles in his ears, cold, high, and fierce. For a heartstopping second, he thinks his pursuer finally caught up, the sound of the wind frighteningly similar. He forces himself to relax with a deep breath and shakes his head. 

But then the cry continues after the wind eases and Shiro’s too late in turning around. He's caught around the middle and flung, breath gone. His back cracks against whatever he's thrown against and he drops hard in the snow. 

He doesn't even have time to recover before the thing is on him again. He's tossed in a new direction and the world spins around him. This time the rough scratch of bark scrapes against his temple and even through the resulting dizziness, he knows what he's found. Trees. A forest. 

Obstacles.

He clamors around the base of it and he can feel when the creature slams the other side. It screeches and tears at the bark, sending bits shooting past his ear, and he ducks low, heart in his throat. He needs to get out of here.

There's a pause and Shiro hesitates before throwing caution to the wind. He darts out low, arms out in a lunge, but one of the forelegs scrapes along his Galra arm and the other hooks and twists his ankle.  He flips on his back and rolls, narrowly dodging a limb that tries to spear him. He twists around another tree and takes the split second to assess. 

Ankle’s fine. Arm is fine. He’s slightly dizzy but otherwise fine. But the cloth is gone, missing from his arm, and he peeks back around to find it. A tentacle lashes the snow next to him but it was enough for him to see. The yellow is glaringly obvious. Downside, it’s now behind his attacker. 

He darts out the other side of the tree, hoping to loop around, but the creature is there and Shiro has to twist to avoid being slashed. He doesn’t clear it, the tip tearing through his left side, but his momentum and the force behind it is enough to send him where he wants to go. 

He snatches up the cloth and runs, weaving through the trees in hopes of deterring it. He doesn’t need to look to know he’s bleeding, he can feel it dripping down his side on the inside of his suit. He wraps the cloth around his arm as he goes and presses it hard against his side. It forces a hiss out of him, the fabric stinging something fierce, but anything he leaves behind will make it easier for it to follow. 

It, and anything else that catches his scent. What he doesn’t need is some wolf or bear to think he’s an easy meal. 

He can hear it behind him. It’s raged screams echo strangely through the trees and there’s a steady sound of cracking wood. It doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Shiro grits his teeth but he can’t go any faster. His head is pounding now, the dizziness distracting, and his vision is starting to spot out. It doesn’t spell good news for him. 

It’s when he stops hearing the destruction behind him that his heart stops for a split second. He spins on his heel, ears straining for anything. He can’t trust his spotting vision and the shifting shadows. But his breath is too loud and his heart pounds uncomfortably in his chest. There’s nothing. He doesn’t know which way it went. 

He curses lowly and presses himself against a tree, curling up amongst the visible roots. He can’t keep going like this. He’s going to exhaust himself. He grits his teeth and keeps looking. He should be able to see  _ something. _ The thing is massive and it’s not completely dark yet. 

And something does catch his attention. Three spots of reflected light through the trees, high above his head and unmoving. His breath catches him the throat when they flicker and he makes himself smaller. Eyes. From something even bigger, silently watching. Waiting. 

Shiro bites back a sob. 

A screech startles him from his hiding place. He scrambles back from the shadow that lunges from the side, Galra arm up and lit out of instinct. He doesn’t even fully get to his feet before he’s knocked back to the ground, sprawled on his back.

He freezes. Tentacles are sliding around his legs faster than he can think. The creature is rearing above him and his vision narrows on the sharp point of its talon as it aims. He doesn’t move, can’t move beyond lifting his arm for defence.

It’s an instant in slow motion. 

The talon drops, knocking his arm aside and pinning it to the snow in the same action. The light sputters and dies and when Shiro tries to yank it back, it’s stuck. The creature lifts him then, dragging him by the arm and all he sees out of the corner of his eye is a tree before nothing. 


	2. Blue Skies Turning Grey

Cold is the first thing that registers followed shortly by pain when he shivers. His head throbs with his heartbeat and when he shifts, burning pain shoots up his side. But he’s alive, he realizes when he opens his eyes. The snow is painfully bright and everything aches, but he’s alive.

Somehow.

He takes in his surroundings with bated breath, seeing where the snow is disturbed and overturned. Pieces of debris from the trees are scattered around along with what he thinks is blood. It’s a dark, sickly blue-green that trails off between the trees to his right, and it looks like there's a lot of it.

He pulls himself to his feet, head craning to see around, and nearly gags at the sight. It's dead. It's very much dead, and for some reason, he's not.

He turns away, sitting back against the tree with a hand over his mouth, and takes stock. He's got a killer headache.  There's a hole now in his Galra arm, pierced straight through next to the elbow, and a freshly scabbed over slice in his side. Powering the hand sends sparks shooting through the hole and he stops that as soon as he sees it.

His side, though, looks gruesome. The suit is torn, edges ragged and there's a deep enough gouge that he doesn’t want to look at it. If he can get his hand going long enough, he'll cauterize it. Otherwise, all he's got is a stained strip of cloth and his shirt. He just needs to clean it first.

He looks the cloth over, grimacing at the amount of blood dried into it. His shirt has less blood in it.

He lays the cloth in the snow then carefully pulls his shirt over his head. He uses a corner of it to spot clean as best as he can, biting his lip through the pain. When it starts bleeding again, albeit sluggishly, he drops the shirt and turns to his hand.

He stares at his palm, taking a deep breath before activating it. The light flickers but it works despite the sparking near the elbow. He can hear the humming, something hissing in the chambers of his arm and he takes the chance before it's gone.

It hurts, burning hot and cold, and he doesn't register that he's screaming until he tears his hand away. He sobs, tears falling freely as he curls over his knees and gasps into the snow. Every breath pulls on the wound, a new spike of pain shooting through him each time. But it’s done. It’s sealed. There might be an infection later but hopefully not before he’s found help.

He swallows thickly and pushes himself up on shaking arms. He can’t stick around. He grabs his shirt and manages to pull it on after a few aborted attempts. One look tells him the cloth won’t fit around his ribs so he wraps it around the hole in his arm instead. Having his side exposed is going to suck but he’ll deal.

Getting to his feet is another endeavor that takes longer than he wants but he gets there. He picks his way along through the trees, using them for support until the pain numbs and he’s steady on his feet. He goes until he finds the edge of the forest and then he stops with a heavy breath.

The weather has cleared, thankfully, the sky a clear blue, but it’s colder. His misting breath lingers longer in the air. There’s no wind, though, another plus to the day. He sees a drift of snow lift in the distance and with that, he turns back into the forest. He’s not dealing with that today. So there’s not a lot of wind but any wind is too much at the moment. He stays in sight of the plains, though, wandering out every so often to see what’s coming.

The ground rises in the distance in tall hills and cliffs. They’re choppy and erratic, good terrain for caves. Better shelter than a forest by a long shot. But the trees only go so far. The sides of the hills are dotted with them but it’s nowhere near the coverage of the forest.

He follows the treeline as much as he can before it veers in another direction. Then he’s out in the open, plowing a new path through the snow. It’s cold, absolutely freezing. But the wind, when it happens, is short and only lasts long enough to clear his hair from his face.

It’s the headache that’s making it hard. He can only keep his eyes open for moments at a time, otherwise the reflecting sun spears right into the back of his head. Multiple times he has to correct his path. At one point he thinks he’s being followed again, but he doesn’t find anything when he looks. Just the forest at the base of the hills and an abundance of snow.

He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, muttering a curse to himself as he trudges onward. He nearly makes it to the top of a hill before something else catches his attention. And he has to look twice because what he’s seeing should be impossible.

A dog stands at the top of the rise, tail high and wagging softly behind it. It’s ears perk up when Shiro stops, two perfect triangles amidst a cloud of white fur. It looks like a samoyed, standing proudly as it stares down at him. Shiro stares back, wide eyed. He needs to know if it’s real, that he’s not suddenly hallucination with everything else.

The tail wags harder when Shiro moves again, and after a couple steps, it turns and walks down the other side of the hill. Shiro’s heart leaps to his throat when it disappears over the edge and he rushes forward. He can’t lose sight of it. This is _major,_ because if there’s actually _dogs,_ This place just got a whole lot better.

It’s looking back when Shiro crests the hill. Its tail gives a short wag before it continues through the snow. Shiro breaths out a sigh of relief and wonder. It’s really a dog.

He follows at a distance, barely conscious of anything else. His entire focus is on the dog. Something thick lodges itself in his throat every time the dog looks back at him. He’s here. He’s not falling behind.

It leads him up the side of another hill, this one taller and steeper and Shiro balks at the prospect of climbing it. He will if he has to. He’s not losing track of this dog. But the dog doesn’t go directly up. It curves around, leading Shiro to the other side where it sort of flattens out. The rest of the hill shoots up as a cliff, towering above them and blocking the wind.

They follow the wall for a bit and the dog looks back more often the further along they go. There’s a spot where it stops. It looks at Shiro and turns on the spot before disappearing into the wall. Shiro sucks in a breath. A cave! At first he thinks it’s small, a crack in the wall as he rushes towards it. From the size of the dog, he thinks he’ll have to duck. But it’s wider, much, _much_ wider and taller than even himself. The inside is even bigger.

There’s a clicking echo further inside. The dog’s nails, he assumes on the stone, but as soon as he steps into the shadows, Shiro stops. He’s far enough in that he can sort of see, but he doesn’t know if what he’s seeing is a good thing or not. Three eyes are staring at him again, apparently not a hallucination from the night before. They hover above him, blinking slowly, and he knows without a doubt that this is what killed his attacker.

He holds his breath, waiting for any sign he needs to run. He really doesn’t want to. It’s already warmer in here and he doesn’t want to leave. He wants to believe that the dog wouldn’t lead him to death.

There’s a strange glimmer in the air before the eyes turn away. The heavy sound of the beast moves further inside. Shiro’s breath leaves him in a rush, his heart pounds against his ribs.

The shadow of the beast vanishes around the curve of the cave, leaving Shiro standing at the mouth. He swallows thickly, shoving aside the anxiety telling him to stay put. He sticks to the wall but presses deeper, following the curve until he can’t see the opening anymore. He settles there, in as much of a corner as he can find, and hopes that the beast doesn’t mind sharing.

This is as close to protective shelter as he’s going to get. There’s no better chance for him to sleep.

It takes a bit for him to relax but he eventually does. Every minute that passes has him sinking further to the ground until his head is pillowed on his arm and his eyes struggle to stay open. It’s not the best place to sleep but he’s had worse. At the very least, it’s warm.

* * *

Shiro wakes up kicking before he’s even aware that there’s something to defend against. Fear races through him, remnants from a nightmare, and they’re expanded as soon as he notices teeth around him. He shouts and writhes, twisting free from whatever jaws have him captive. The trip to the floor is a lot softer than he expects, and even as he scrambles to the wall, he’s not chased.

He looks over his shoulder, struggling to catch his breath. It doesn’t help when the owner of those three eyes is closer than he expects. They're wide and ice blue except for the odd gold one situated in the middle. There's no malice as it looms above him, long pointed nose sniffing towards him and triangle ears attentive. Thick white fur covers it entirely and it doesn’t take long for Shiro to connect the dots.

“Oh my god,” he gasps, just as a smaller form wiggles out from between its legs. Shiro stares at it, glancing up at the large one for comparison. He turns and sags against the wall, not even moving when the small one starts sniffing around his legs.

“You’re not a dog,” he tells it. It sits abruptly at his feet and barks at him. Its eyes are blue too, but it doesn’t have the third eye like the large one.

It’s strange, but it could be an age thing, for all he knows.

He tenses again when the large one shifts. It stands, rising to its full height near the ceiling of the cave and comes closer with measured steps. It’s a narrow space comparatively and it doesn’t have far to go before it’s nudging at Shiro’s side. It noses at his leg, which he lifts instinctively, and pushes against Shiro’s shoulder until he moves before he’s knocked over. The nose doesn’t leave until he’s standing and even then, it’s only to poke at his back to get him walking.

He hopes to whatever’s holy that this isn’t a trap.

The dog runs ahead as they head deeper into the cave, barking and whining in excitement. The ground slopes downwards, the walls widen around another curve, and Shiro notices another source of light ahead. It’s not daylight, it’s too dim for that, but there’s a distinct blue glow that’s somewhat familiar. That thought is set aside, though, when the walls open and they’re suddenly in a large cavern.

Deposits of some sort of metal or mineral line the walls. Shiro doesn’t know what it is but it washes the cavern in a gentle blue light. A pool of water that’s collected along the side reflects it in ever shifting waves. It’s because of the light that Shiro can see just how many creatures live here.

Multiple heads turn towards them, towards _him,_ and Shiro stumbles to a stop. Most, if not all of them, have the third eye in the middle of their forehead. And it’s different for them as well. Gold, as opposed to the brown, amber, blue. They stare at him, assessing him with varying degrees of interest. But none bare their teeth. There’s no narrowed eyes and pinned ears that see him as a threat.

There’s some element of relief when they turn their attention away. Some lay their heads down to continue sleeping. A couple get up and meander through another tunnel on the other side. Others go back to watching the young playing in the centre. The one behind him walks over and around him towards the water.

They’re wolves, he finally admits to himself, or something like them since this isn’t Earth. A pack of 15 or so, and this is their den. He glances around the cavern in awe, taking everything in. How - _why_ \- is he here?

He looks at the wolf that guided him here, notices how it always seems to keep him in its sight. If he leaves, it’ll probably come get him. Not that he particularly wants to, this is the warmest he’s been since he escaped the Galra. He takes a deep breath and swallows back his nerves.

Shiro edges along the wall until he’s far enough from the entry before he sits. He’s careful of his side, but he notices that somewhere along the line, it had started bleeding again. Some of the scabbing is fresher, and there’s new staining on his suit, but for the moment it’s dry. Nothing to do about it now. He just needs to try and rest.

Try, being the operative word.

But he’s wired now from the nightmare and the shock of a lifetime. Sleep won’t come for a while. Closing his eyes only puts him into a doze that’s broken as soon as one of the wolves get too close. And there’s constant noise.

The consistent tap of nails on stone as they move around. The barks and cries of the young as they play. Low crooning from the adults when the young get too rowdy. Then there’s the steady flow of water and something dripping in the distance. Everything echoes and it keeps Shiro from actually falling asleep.

He gives up eventually. He gets to the point where he’s fully awake again but he’s not sure how much time passes before it does. It could be minutes. It could be hours. Hunger’s gnawing at him again. He watches the wolves come and go, some more disheveled than others. With all of them looking pretty much the same, it’s hard to tell if the ones coming back are the same ones that left.

They all give him a wide berth.

There’s one wolf that the young get excited over when it returns. Shiro’s watching the water, contemplating whether or not there’s fish in it when it comes in. The retching pulls his attention and he looks over in time to see a pile of regurgitated flesh land on the ground. That about kills his own appetite. Especially when the young descend on it like it’s their last meal.

He covers his mouth, swallowing against the turn of nausea in his stomach. Whatever happens now, he just hopes none of the wolves decide to bring _that_ over to him.

He stares hard at the wall and focuses on anything other than the sound. He should probably leave soon. He’s wasting time here sitting protected in this cave. He should get back to finding that pod so he can send a signal out. Then they’ll be able to find him and he can get back to fighting the Galra and protecting the universe.

If only he didn’t get his arm broken while he was at it.

It’s fixable, he knows, but not by him. He doesn’t have the technical know how to reconnect the severed wires like this. But someone does. He thinks.

He frowns at his arm and realizes he’s got part of the cloth twisted around his fingers. He untwines it and flattens it against the panels, but it’s wrinkled now, the creases deep. He wonders how long he’d been doing it for.

He sighs. It’s not important. He needs to leave and he needs to go back.

He grits his teeth against the headache that starts to press behind his eyes. But to where? And why does he get a headache every time he tries to remember?

A whine breaks his concentration. The dog - _puppy_ \- is in front of him, ears back and belly to the floor. Its paws reach towards him but they don’t touch. As soon as it realizes it has Shiro’s attention, it barks softly at him. Shiro blinks at it, looking around to see if any of the other wolves are watching. There’s a few, the one that guided him here, he thinks, and a couple others across the room. But they don’t seem concerned.

The pup barks again before it gets up and moves further away. It drops against the back of another sleeping wolf whose ears only twitch at the disturbance. The pup doesn’t look away. Shiro tilts his head and the pup mimics the action.

How long has it been watching him?

He sighs and breaks eye contact, slouching down against the wall. There’s no use worrying about it. He’ll use this opportunity to heal and then he’ll leave. That’s about all he can do. He glances at the pup out of the corner of his eye. Even if they are cute.

It occurs to him after watching more wolves come in and out that he should probably drink. Especially since there’s nothing for him to eat, but he doesn’t want to bring attention to himself by standing. The water’s not too far, luckily, just 20-ish feet along the wall. He should be able to get there without calling attention to himself.

He looks around the room, waiting for the perfect moment to move without being noticed. It’s hard. All of them seem to be aware of every twitch and shift that happens. Shiro creeps along, stopping when a head turns towards him or a wolf he thought was sleeping opens its eyes. It’s even harder when he stretches his side too far and he feels the burn crack. Then it’s an added layer of difficulty to try and not make it worse.

He makes it eventually. The wolves at some point stop looking at him at every sound he makes. When he gets there, they all seem to be pointedly looking away, even. Shiro frowns.

Are they humoring him? He’s pretty sure they’re humoring him. His frown deepens. Do they even have a sense of humor? He stares at one that doesn’t really seem to be looking at anything. When they move, it’s only to turn further away even though there’s _definitely_ nothing happening in that direction.

Right. In any case, he’s got fresh water next to him now.

He drinks until he’s full, almost uncomfortably so. Who’s to say when he’ll have something like this again. The wolves still aren’t looking at him when he sits back up. He’ll only admit to himself that he’s grateful for it.

He tries to get back to where he started. It’s closer to the exit and it’s higher up compared to the water. But his side is burning from the exertion and trying to haul himself back to that point isn’t doing him any favours. He hears a couple drips on stone that definitely isn’t water and stops immediately. Great.

He probably should’ve cleaned it while he was over there. That would’ve been smart. But he’s not moving any further. He’s going to stay here until it scabs back over or he passes out. Whichever comes first.


	3. Endless Days

Shiro doesn’t wake up from teeth this time but with the way his heart is racing, he might as well have. He gasps into the crook of his arm, fingers clenching at the ground beneath him. Tears burn in his eyes and soak into his sleeve. He’s trembling, he knows he is, and it’s not because he’s cold. 

He doesn’t know what it was. All he remembers is violet light and clinical voices. He doesn’t even remember what they were saying. 

He turns his face further into his arm and focuses on calming his breath. Every drag pulls on his side, every stifled sob and hitched breath emphasizes the burn. He lifts his arm and tries to feel around the edge with trembling fingers. He barely needs to touch it to feel the radiating heat. It’s infected, he knows it. He doesn’t need to look to know the surrounding skin is an angry red. 

He needs to get up. It needs to be cleaned. 

He lifts himself up on shaking arms then stops, blinking in surprise. The pup has wandered close again, curled in a tight ball near his head, and this time, it brought friends. He’s surrounded by a wall of fluffy bodies, five by his count, and while they’re close enough that he can feel their heat, none of them are touching him. 

Something thick lodges itself in his throat, warmth filling his chest. A fresh well of tears surge to the surface and he takes a deep breath to hold them back. There’s even a gap he can slip through without touching them. There’s a level of intelligence to these creatures, that much is certain. But he can’t stay down right now, as much as he wants to. He needs to get this looked at. 

He gets to his feet using the wall for support. The pup’s head pops up for an instant, blinking sleepily at him. Then it yawns wide and flops on its side in a stretch. The smile Shiro gives it is reflex as he steps over. 

Another head pops up as he makes his way to the exit, one of the bigger wolves that’s maybe half the size of one that brought him in. It barks at him, low and quiet enough that it doesn’t even echo. Shiro glances at it but doesn’t stop. He slowly makes his way outside, not leaving the wall for a second. It pulls painfully on his side but he needs daylight to see it properly. 

The first gust of wind is a shock that takes his breath and almost his feet. He’s not even in the open yet but he slides down the wall anyway. He close enough and there’s enough light coming in that he can see. He unravels the cloth from his arm, using some of the drifted snow to scrub out as much of the blood as he can. It’s going to need a good soak later but it’s the best he can do at the moment. 

He bites his lip through the pain as he cleans the wound but it’s not enough to completely stifle every grunt and whimper. Unfortunately, without disinfectant, he can only wipe things away. The amount of discoloration is already a bad sign. He just hopes it doesn’t get worse and covering it at this point might do just that. 

He tries not to look at it when he’s done. Tries not to touch it either, but the way his shirt hangs puts the hem right on top. Because of course it does. Things with him apparently don’t happen halfway. He gives the cloth another scrub in the snow before tying it back around his arm. If he can’t hide one hole, at least he can hide the other. 

He gets back to his feet in stages, and when he finally turns around, he finds a wolf just barely visible in the shadows. It whines softly at him, amber eyes watching him carefully. It shuffles its feet almost nervously even though it’s sitting. Shiro sighs.

“What do you want?” he asks, though he’s not really sure why. It’s a wolf. It’s not like it can speak. The wolf just whines at him again, ducking its head slightly, and Shiro can’t be imagining the hopeful look in its eyes. 

It stands when Shiro doesn’t do anything else, and keeps its head down as it approaches. Keeping itself small, he realizes, non-threatening. And he believes it, even if it’s about the size of a horse and its back is level with his chin.

He doesn’t pull away when it brushes against his hand, fur soft beneath his fingers. He doesn’t move when the wolf loops behind him to come between him and the wall. It tucks itself under his Galra arm, taking his weight with ease. Shiro swallows the lump in his throat at the action and curls his fingers into the fur. He resists the urge to press his face into its side. 

He lets it take him back but even with its help, Shiro can’t move all that fast. And it’s draining. Much more than it should be, if he’s going to be honest with himself. Any energy he had is gone and exhaustion pulls at him as soon as he’s settled against the wall again. 

The wolf doesn’t stray too far after, and if it’s not watching him out of the corner of its eye, there’s always an ear trained on him. Shiro frowns. They’re concerned for him, he thinks, but he can’t exactly put together why. It’s not like he’s done anything for them. 

There's shuffling and a soft whine to his left and Shiro sucks in a startled breath before relaxing again. The pup is back, watching him with imploring eyes, and Shiro smiles automatically. He lifts his hand but hesitates before reaching out to pet it. Is he even allowed? He glances around the cavern. Will this be the line that kills him when he crosses it? He’s always been told not to touch the babies of wild animals. 

A cold nose against his palm makes him jump. The pup whines at him again, pulling back only slightly from where it was stretched out, and Shiro holds his breath. He rests his hand on the top of its head, eyes darting around for any sign of warning. But the pup only presses up against his touch, whining for more. So he pets it. He runs his hand over the top of its head and down its back. 

It’s unexpectedly calming. He almost loses himself in the rhythm of it, the steady up and down motion, when it starts shifting closer. He can’t control his flinch. He yelps as he jerks back, his elbow coming down to cover his side. He doesn’t even know if there was contact but there’s new flares of pain spreading from the burn anyway. 

The pup backs away immediately, whining and crying with its ears flattened to its head. It paces around Shiro’s feet while he gets his heart rate under control. The rest of the pack is watching now in varying states of alarm and Shiro ducks his head. The amount of eyes staring at him is daunting. He doesn’t know which one is going to be mad that he upset one of their young. 

The amber eyed wolf makes a noise low in its throat, barely a bark, and the pup goes to it. It's still whining quietly, even as it lays down, and it doesn't stop looking at him. Shiro releases the breath he didn't know he was holding when nothing else happens.

That went better than he could've hoped.

He slowly unwinds, the pain in his side fading the more he relaxes. He rests his head back against the wall and closes his eyes when the exhaustion catches up with him again. It's quiet time, apparently, and the ambient noise of the cavern almost puts him to sleep.

He wakes up a little when he feels heat on his right. He cracks his eye open to see what it is. Or who it is, it turns out. The pup is back again, inching closer and growing bolder the longer it takes Shiro to react. It settles carefully against his side, almost like it's afraid Shiro will lash out or pull away. When it's pressed as close as it dares, it sighs and rests its head on its paws. 

Shiro considers it, wondering why its behaviour is familiar. It’s not like its too far off from how a dog acts back home. They’re like samoyeds with the spirits of huskies, highly vocal and dramatic. But this one is almost acting like a petulant child that doesn’t know when to give up. Shiro frowns.

A child.

Shiro covers his mouth, biting the inside if his lip and taking a deep breath so he doesn’t end up laughing. The thought’s absurd but there’s no other way to interpret what seems to be going on. If there’s one thing he remembers about children it’s their propensity for bringing home injured animals. 

He’s the injured animal the parents decided to keep.

Shiro takes another deep breath and looks at the pup. It hasn’t lifted its head, pretending disinterest, but the way its ears keep twitching towards him give it away. Shiro smiles and lets himself relax against it. If that’s truly what’s happening here, then he’s safe. 

He’ll rest up and heal as much as he can because he’s not going to be safe for much longer.

* * *

Something brushes up against his face. It’s an odd, wet sort of feeling and it takes a few passes for him to realize what it is. He forces his eyes open long enough to see a nose lift away and Shiro groans. Then it’s back, pressing into his cheek, his hair, his throat, with the tongue mixed in again for good measure.

He doesn’t want to deal with this right now. He can feel the heat of his own skin, too warm to be healthy. The infection is the source, every breath tells him that, but he just wants to sleep until the fever goes away. 

Then he becomes aware of the whining and that pulls him further from sleep. The wolves are worried. Shiro sighs and swallows the whimper of pain. He’d better put their worries to rest. He lifts a hand to block his face, groaning as he turns on his front. The wolves back away long enough for him to raise himself to his knees and gain his bearings. 

He’s far more tired than he has any right to be. He’s not even sure how long he was out but it feels like it was a while. Probably good that he’s awake, then. He opens his eyes, blinking through the blurry haze, and nearly falls backwards. One of the larger wolves is closer than he expects, but he manages to stay upright. Mostly. 

He reaches out and grabs onto its fur for balance, fingers knotting somewhere near its ears. Or the side of its neck, he’s not sure. He’s not really looking. He just squeezes his eyes shut against the dizziness and tries not to pass out. He presses his face into the fur.

He’s half aware when the wolf shifts closer but he doesn’t expect the ground to try and fall away. He panics, accidentally yanking the fur he’s got a hold on, but he can’t do much without causing more pain. He gets half a kick before his side flares and his toes jam into the ground. The cry comes out of him automatically.

The motion stops and Shiro tries to catch his breath, heart pounding in his ears. He squints through one eye and tries to find sense in what’s happening. He’s half off the ground, the head of one of the wolves braced under him, and the rest are all watching. 

There’s a low sound from the wolf he’s on, a rumbling croon that vibrates through his chest. Something about it sets him at ease and he slowly relaxes, pressing his face back into its fur. When they move again, he’s got enough sense to realize what’s happening. 

It wants him to stand.

Shiro takes a deep breath. He can stand. He thinks. 

They rise, and slowly but surely, Shiro makes it to his feet. He’s not steady by any means, but they seem to want him to go somewhere. He’s not going to argue. 

He loses the next few moments. He’s not sure how but he’s suddenly next to the water, back on his knees and trying not to fall in. He’s not sure why he’s here either. He’s not really all that thirsty. One of the wolves, not the one he’s clinging to, keeps looking at him. 

It dips its head towards the water, almost like it’s going to drink but it stops before it does. Shiro frowns at it. If it wants to drink, it should. Why does it keep looking at him?

The wolf does it a few more times before Shiro gets the picture. It wants…  _ him _ to drink? Shiro frowns harder. Just the idea is making his stomach turn. He shakes his head and leans away, turning into the fur that seems to surround him. He doesn’t want it right now. Maybe later.

They don’t seem to like that. But despite the cacophony of sharp barks and whines, none of them come up to poke at him. The rumbling croon is back and he feels a nose sniff at his ear. It stops when he whines. He just wants to sleep.

He doesn’t remember much else. His sleep is rife with fever dreams, a sense of panic that won’t leave him. He sees faces, shadowed and blurred but he feels like he knows them. They speak with voices that are familiar and not at the same time.

“Where are you?” they ask. Shiro doesn’t know. When he is aware, it’s only for moments at a time, and the only comfort then is that he’s never alone. 

There’s one point where he feels something dragging against his side. It hurts enough to make him want to cry, but he doesn’t even have the energy to open his eyes. He’s helpless to it no matter how much he wants it to stop. 

He loses a lot of time, he thinks. He doesn't know how long it’s been when he comes to, gasping on the edges of a nightmare and finally able to think straight. He’s pressed against the side of one of the grown wolves and practically buried under the young. It’s surprising, how good he feels despite the dull headache and how sore he is all over. His side doesn’t hurt anymore and just looking at it puts it leagues above what it was at before. 

It’s fully scabbed over, no longer inflamed and the discoloration is gone. It’s actually healing. 

Shiro leans back against his makeshift pillow and blinks at the ceiling. The cave he’s in isn’t the one he remembers either. It’s smaller with less of the glowing mineral in the walls and there’s more than one tunnel leading out. 

The body beneath him shifts and Shiro looks over. Three eyes blink slowly at him from above, two ice blue and the other the usual gold. The one that brought him in. 

The wolf draws in close and it’s almost like it’s holding its breath. He can feel the way it sort of stagnates. Shiro raises his hand and the wolf--she, he thinks--presses her nose to his palm. 

“I’m okay,” he murmurs as he scratches into her fur and she presses back with a gentle firmness. He doesn’t even know if she can understand him, but she sighs, of all things, and it feels like relief. She pushes passed his hand to press against his chest and he can hear what’s probably her tail brushing along the ground. 

She’s… happy?

The movement wakes the others, heads popping up and bodies wiggling once they see Shiro awake. He expects them to clamor on top of him and try to get in his face. But even in their excitement, they’re decidedly gentle with him. They don’t do more than paw at his legs amidst their leaping and pacing back and forth. 

Their assault on his ears is to be expected though. They’re certainly not quiet. 

They’re also the only ones here, in this smaller part of the cave. Just himself, the five pups, and what he assumes is their mother. She pulls away after a moment, and even then, it’s hesitant. She waits for him get to his feet before she stands. Then she walks over him after sniffing his hair, the top of his head barely touching the fur of her belly. 

He blinks after her, amazed. She’s big but she’s so gentle.

What did he do to deserve this?

He’s briefly unbalanced when the pups tear after her, one in particular circling his feet twice. The one he thought was a dog, he recognizes. He knows those eyes. So he follows at their heels and his steps quicken at another thought.

He’s absolutely  _ starving. _

The tunnel they go through is the largest one and Shiro steps back into the main cavern in time for another… delivery. It’s just as unappetizing as it was before, and as hungry as he is, he’s not willing to eat  _ that. _ Though maybe he should be because he doesn’t actually remember the last time he ate. 

He wanders closer, scrutinizing the bits he might be able to stomach. But then the smell hits and he immediately detours to the water. It’s not worth it. He’ll go out after and find something, his hand should work well enough for that. 

The water is better than he could’ve hoped for. It’s ice cold and a bit metallic and he doesn’t remember it tasting this good last time. It gets to the point where his hands don’t bring enough to his mouth and he resorts to drinking from it directly. What he doesn’t expect is for something to flash by his face. 

He recognizes it, though. He knows that silver flash of scales in the water and he holds his breath, waiting to see if it comes again. It does, luckily, and his heart leaps in his chest. There’s fish! He shuffles on his knees, leaning further over the water. Now he just needs to get it, a tricky situation since he doesn’t have a line. 

He darts with his right hand first and remembers last second that it’s not working the way it should. It sticks at the elbow, creaking ominously, and he only manages to splash himself with the water. He sits back with a click of his tongue and only starts wiping the water away when he starts shivering. His left probably isn’t going to be much better. He huffs. 

He’s going to need to get in if he wants any food.

He leans over the water, trying to see how far the bottom is, but it’s too dark. He doesn’t have anything he can stick in to test it either. He watches another fish flash by the surface. Nothing for it, he supposes, he’ll just have to go for it. 

He doesn’t even get to his feet before there’s teeth at the back of his neck and he’s being pulled backwards. He yelps, hands going back to guard his neck, but the wolf only has his shirt. Another wolf comes between him and the water, and when he gets dropped, a third comes and lays across his chest. Or it rests its head on his chest but it gets the point across. He’s not getting up without it moving first. 

Shiro groans to the ceiling, a little bit offended but there’s no way to tell them that. He’s just trying to eat. 

He hears the splash of water over the barking and whining, and despite the massive head on his chest, he can still see the pool. A wolf--not Mama Wolf, she’s taken to standing over his head--is standing in the water now, a good part of its legs covered. Shiro groans and rubs a hand over his face. Okay, point proven. He probably would’ve drowned before he ever got to touch a fish. 

He pushes at the wolf on top of him but he’s not let up until three fish are dropped on the ground next to him. They’re not very big, barely 20 centimeters, he thinks as they flop on the stone. It's probably why the pack doesn't bother with them, but he has fish now. And there’s snow outside that he can chill them with. Perfect.

He gathers them up, snagging them by the gills before hauling it towards the exit. As tempting as it is, he’s not going to eat them straight. Bacteria is still a real contender in things trying to kill him. 

* * *

He decides to leave after he eats. As much as he wants to stay, he knows he can’t. There’s a fight he needs to get back to and prolonging his return only makes him feel like he’s hiding. It's not a good feeling  He’s been gone for a while and the others are probably worried.

He presses his lips together. Something about that is worrying in itself. As much as he tries, he can’t remember who ‘the others’ are. All it does is give him a headache. 

There’s something wrong but trying to figure that out here will just waste more time.

He cleans himself up first, clearing as much of the blood off his person and the cloth as he can. If he's being honest with himself, he’s not sure why the cloth is important. He’s less concerned about the state of own clothes, but he gets the fabric back to looking mostly yellow again. There’s still stains in spots, places where the blood was thickest, but in the end it’s relatively clean. 

Then he says goodbye. He goes up to Mama Wolf and he gets the feeling she knows. She looks at him like she’s looking into his soul and Shiro takes a deep breath to keep control. He doesn’t hug her, he knows he’ll break if he does. She nudges at his chest and he just rests his hand over the bridge of her nose.

He’s followed out of the cave as he leaves. The pups are crying at his heels, their mother likely with them, but he doesn't look. He can’t afford to look back. He walks into a clear day with little wind and no snowfall. He walks until he no longer hears the howling behind him. And he continues. 

He goes back the way he came. He doesn’t find much aside from what was already there. The rate he moves now puts into perspective how far he actually went before. He makes it back through the forest and into the plains within hours. 

He doesn’t find the crater with the water though. Instead, he stumbles across a deep trench in the ground and snow, broken debris scattered and lodged in and around it. At the end is the pod he left behind. 

In his excitement, he almost misses the two forms next to it. Someone else also found his pod. One points towards him and Shiro curses under his breath. He ducks down, tucking himself against a piece of paneling in time for a shot to land against the other side. 

Of course they would be the type to shoot first, ask later. 

No matter, he’s dealt with worse. He just needs to get to the pod and he can probably barricade himself in. He peeks out and surveys the distance. There’s places he can use for cover and pieces along the way he can throw until he gets closer. They don’t look like they’ll be too much trouble.

He darts out and they start shouting before their shots start landing behind him. He doesn’t waste any time in heading to cover. Loose debris gets picked up and tossed to deflect their shots, and when he’s hidden again, he can hear their cursing. 

They seem to be more concerned with themselves than anything else. Fine with him.

He moves again, snatching up what seems to be a broken pipe. He rolls to dodge their shots, then whips the pipe as he rises. It distracts the big one, spinning through the air to land hard against his shoulder. 

The small one yells wordlessly and starts to shoot faster, but speed doesn’t make up for accuracy. Shiro makes it through the shots, ignoring the snow spraying in his face. He tries to use his hand but there’s a pop and spark before the light dies completely. Shiro grits his teeth through the resulting shock that shoots up his arm and drops to avoid getting shot. 

The big one raises his gun high, the butt of it aimed towards Shiro’s face. He winds out of the way but not fast enough. He gets caught along the cheek, the force driving him down but Shiro uses the momentum to his advantage. He grabs a handful of snow and throws it up into their faces, blinding them long enough for Shiro to turn and wrestle the gun away from the small one. 

Now he has a weapon and he’s closer to the pod. 

He heads for the door, shooting back to give himself cover until he ducks inside. He’s prepared for them to bombard him. To keep him pinned, unable to shoot back. But it’s suddenly quiet and Shiro looks out in time for catch them sharing a look.

The small one pulls something out of his pocket, something small enough to be covered by his hand. Something else flashes out of the corner of his eye, a bead of light on a ship that’s supposed to be dead. He doesn’t know how long these two were here before but it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s a bomb and it’s about to go off.

He swings himself out the door and braces against the wall but it’s only enough to protect him from the heat. The blast throws him and the wind is knocked from his lungs when he lands, ears ringing. He stays in the snow, taking the moment to catch his breath and control the vertigo, hoping the two don’t come looking. 

The sky keeps sliding, even after the ringing fades, and he closes his eyes as he rolls to his front. His heart skips a beat when the ground drops. A loud crack echoes around him, like ice splitting, and he realizes it’s not the sky that’s sliding. 

There’s a cliff he didn’t see, one the snow and ice was balanced precariously on that the blast compromised. He tries to get to his feet, tries to run back where it’s safe, but he realized too late. The snow disappears beneath him and despite his grappling for the edge, he falls. 


	4. On Broken Wings

He lands at the bottom bruised but alive and mercifully unburied. He stares up as the haze of snow clears and the shock slowly wears off. Two walls of ice and stone rise above him and form a thin strip of sky for him to follow. There’s no way that he’ll be able to climb them. Not that it matters much, the pod won’t be there anymore. 

That was his chance, his  _ one _ chance to get out of here, and now it’s gone. The pod’s in pieces, scattered between the bottom of this crevice and the landscape up top. He closes his eyes and covers them with his arm. So much of him wants to cry. 

He lays in the snow until the urge fades. The cold is starting to seep into his clothes, setting him trembling. He knows he should move before it becomes dangerous. 

Three wolves are watching him when he sits up, one smaller than the others. Younger. They linger at one end of the crevice but they don’t come closer. They’re waiting, he thinks, but for what? 

For him, maybe?

“Why are you here?” he asks. Trying to keep the tremor out of his voice is futile. They don’t answer but it’s not like he really expected one. All they do is blink at him and Shiro turns away. He’s not going with them. He’s not giving up. 

The gun fell with him, he notices as he stands. He picks it up after brushing the snow off and tucks it close. That’s one thing in his favour. He starts walking away from the wolves towards the other end of the crevice. He doesn’t look back to see if they’re following. 

The ground mostly slopes back up. There’s places where he has to climb but he eventually makes it back to the plains. He keeps a careful eye this time as he wanders. If there’s one hole in the ground, there’s bound to be others. It’d be just his luck to fall into another, but he wants to avoid it if he can.

The snow seems endless, a wasteland devoid of life. The forests and mountains in the distance, even though he knows otherwise, feel unreachable. He stops and stares ahead, not really seeing what’s there. He’s not going to find anything here. 

He had no idea where those people had come from. There’s no clue as to where they could’ve gone. He’s lost, stranded on an alien planet with no way off. He wants - no, he  _ needs -  _

A face flashes through his mind, distorted and lost before it even registers. He grits his teeth and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. He ignores the pop and creak in his arm. The gun drops into the snow at his feet. The burn of tears don’t stop. 

His head  _ aches. _

He feels their warmth before he even hears them in the snow. He can’t even muster the will to be surprised. The wolves are back, surrounding him and blocking him from the cold. Shiro looks up at them and takes a shuddering breath.

_ “Please,” _ he begs. He doesn't even know what he’s begging for. It’s not like they can fill the holes in his memory or get him a ship. They’re just wolves, making the most of the life they were given. This is all they’ve ever known, he’s just an intruder on their lives. 

One of them leans down, brown eyes gentle, and Shiro can't look away. Their head butts against his chest, not even enough to knock him, just enough to feel their weight and Shiro latches on. 

“Please,” he begs again and the wolf croons. It's like a low howl in his ear, quiet and soothing and Shiro takes a deep breath, emotion welling thick in his throat. Why are they so gentle with him?

He doesn't resist when they guide him back. They let him pick up the gun, but there's nothing to use it in. He doesn't see anything beyond the white of their fur. He doesn't try to, anyway, even if they'd let him. He's had enough of looking at snow.

The pups crowd him when they gets back. They circle his feet after he's barely taken two steps in, practically stepping on each other in their excitement, and Shiro laughs. It's wet, halfway to a sob, and the empty feeling from the walk back lifts. The laughs quickly turn into hitching sobs and he gives up on holding them back. 

He doesn’t bother with moving further in, just drops to his knees where he is and pulls one of the pups in his arms. He buries his face in their fur, suffering the whining in his ear as they sniff at him. There’s no point in hiding it. There’s no one to see, no one to tell. He’s trapped, separated from everything he knows and there’s no way back.

“I tried,” he tells them. “I don’t know what else to do. Where do I go? What do I do? How do I get back?” They don’t answer him, of course they don’t. But it puts the truth in the open where he can’t avoid it. 

He ends up surrounded, both laying on and being laid on by the wolf pups. There’s no spare space against him. They’re directly in the path of travel, but he can’t bring himself to care. When sleep pulls, he doesn’t fight it. 

Voices call to him in his dreams. He feels like he should know them but they’re distorted, mixing and melding into something new. ‘Where are you?’ they ask, but he can’t speak. ‘Come back,’ they say, but he doesn’t know where they are. He can’t remember. 

He tries to shout but his voice is trapped in his throat. He tries to run but his legs are stuck. What happened?

The voices shift, calling his name until they sound like one continuous scream. Why can’t he remember?

‘Y0XT35 failed,’ they say, cold and emotionless, and Shiro wakes with a gasp. 

His heart is racing and his head is pounding, but the lingering anxiety fades with every breath he takes. He’s shifted to curl more on himself, arms folded in front of him and for some reason, he’s got the cloth clutched tight. But the wolves are still here. He’s still surrounded and he’s warm. 

He reaches out, running his fingers through the fur of one in front of him. They twitch and groan but they don’t do much else. A few passes and they shift closer so Shiro doesn’t have to reach as much. 

“You have a good life here,” he tells them quietly. He can hear whispers of his own voice echo back and he presses even closer. Space opens at his back but he only feels the cool air for a moment before it’s covered again. The pup behind him whines and he feels a head prop itself on his hip. His smile is automatic but it feels tremulous at best. He barely holds it long enough to reach down and pet them. 

“You’re all so good,” he says. He closes his eyes and soaks in the warmth. It’s strange, almost foreign, how settled he feels. He shouldn’t be here, there’s a role he needs to play, but it doesn't feel… pressing. It doesn't feel like it's looming anymore. He wonders what stroke of luck he hit to be found by this pack. 

“I should thank you, you know. Without you I’d probably be dead.” He doesn’t even know which one is the one he spotted on that hill but at this point, it doesn’t really matter. He’s here and alive, despite the best efforts of the universe. 

“Something’s wrong,” he murmurs into the quiet. “I’m supposed to be doing something. People are waiting for me but I can’t-” He takes a deep breath but he can’t finish the thought. He can’t force the words to form. 

“The Galra did something to me,” he says instead, quieter still. “They took something from me and I don’t think I can get it back.” He opens his eyes to see pale blue staring back. He hears a tail beat against the ground and a smile pulls at his lips. “Let’s hope you never have to deal with them.”

There’s a long moment where they stare at each other before the pup dips forward and licks across his nose. It startles a laugh out of him, loud enough that it bounces off the walls. Multiple heads pop up at once, startled awake as Shiro descends in a fit of giggles. The pup continues to lick over his face until he rolls away and brings up a hand between them. 

“Enough,” he laughs as he pulls himself out of the pile. The pups whine and cry after him, but they get distracted soon enough when food arrives. A wolf with brown eyes brings him more fish, four this time, and again, he takes them outside. As he sits and eats, a couple of the larger wolves come out and sit with him. 

It’s probably wishful thinking but part of him thinks he could get used to this. If there wasn’t a war looming overhead, it would be a lot easier. There’s nothing quite like the happy loyalty of dogs. He looks at one of the wolves out of the corner of his eye. 

Even if those dogs are massive alien wolves. 

* * *

He gets bored over the course of the day. Exploring the caverns only take part of the morning and beyond the three main ‘rooms’, there isn’t much to look at. The water only comes up at one point which is where most of them gather, understandably. Then there’s the den where he woke up the day before, and, for lack of a better term, the bathroom.

The waste room? They don’t really take baths.

In any case, that ‘room’ sits lower than the rest and traps the smell in a curious network of tunnels. It really makes him think about how intelligent these creatures are to have and use what constitutes as a restroom. What else do they do that he’s curiously familiar with? Does it mean they’re a people? 

Probably. He’s willing to put money on it. 

Beyond that, there’s just more tunnels. Some run wider than others, but there isn’t any that can really call itself another room. The only reason he doesn’t get lost is because of the pup that’s pretty much attached itself to his side.  

There’s not much else to do, otherwise. He starts to get restless and he takes to following one of the older wolves around. They end up forming a train around the caverns for a bit before the wolf stops and looks at him. His brown eyes look particularly unamused. Shiro stares back, unabashed in how obvious he is. 

He’s bored. 

The wolf snorts and turns away with a full body shake. An ear flicks towards him as the wolf crosses the main room towards the exit. He shoots a glance towards Shiro before he leaves, some kind of intent in his eyes. Shiro picks up the gun, then, and hurries after. There must be something better to do out there than there is in here. 

Two others fall in step, sniffing curiously at his hair, but they don’t turn him away like he first expects. The pup stays behind, though, whining and growling at him before dropping at the entrance with a huff. Clearly it doesn’t want him to leave but Shiro’s too stir crazy to stick around. 

They all step outside and, without pause, start heading west. It’s pretty breezy and there’s some light snowfall to go with the partial cloud cover, but all in all, it's an alright day for a walk. As long as he keeps moving, he'll be fine.

The wolves seem to have a set path they’re following that takes them through the hills. There’s no real landmarks, nothing to tell him which side of the hill they’re going to go. They just move and Shiro finds himself trailing behind them just so he doesn’t end up getting lost. They wind through the rise and falls, keeping a fairly brisk pace for him, until they reach the forest. 

A forest? He's not sure if it's the same one he cut through before.

They don’t go in immediately, keeping to the edge as they veer north. When one does eventually go in, Shiro makes follow, tightening his grip on his gun. But he gets blocked, a gentle nudge turning him away from the trees as the others continue along the outskirts. He’s confused but he goes along with it.

The wolf comes back maybe five minutes later, trotting up behind them with a low bark. Another one turns into the trees then, the one furthest ahead, and Shiro doesn’t go after it this time. He looks at the one he’s next to just to make sure. They’re watching him but they look away when their eyes meet. 

Shiro watches as they pull ahead and the other comes into step on his other side. 

“What do you do out here?” he asks. The wolf just gives him a low warbling moan before dipping down to take a mouthful of snow. “Ah, kay,” Shiro nods, like it actually told him something coherent, and puts his focus on walking. 

Their pace is a bit hard to keep up with, since he’s so much smaller. One of their strides cover four of his and it doesn’t even look like they’re walking all that fast. Every so often, he has to jog to keep up just so he doesn’t lag too far behind. He’s starting to feel like the child that’s struggling to keep up with his parents.

He catches sight of the wolf coming back, their blue eyes bright in the shade of the trees. They bark at Shiro as they come closer, and that’s when Shiro notices something else before they come out into the light. A shimmering kind of glow in their third eye.

Shiro tries to get a better look but it fades fast and the wolf is already next to him in the open. He greets them with a laugh when they sniff at his hair and his shoulders, jostling him in the process. Then they nudge him forward and Shiro jogs to catch up. 

It happens again when the next wolf comes back around roughly ten minutes later. Shiro’s watching for them to appear out of the trees and when their eyes meet, they bark at him. Their third eye shimmers briefly, a blue shine in their iris not unlike the light in the caves. 

Has it always been like that? He’ll have to look closer when they get back. Maybe it's like a greeting, something exclusive to them. He can't see the others’ eyes to check with them facing away. 

It's an interesting thought. He'll have to ask Cor-

His breath locks in his chest and he's blinded from the pain that splits through his head. It's sudden and staggering, no warning whatsoever, and it's all encompassing. It's all he can do just to breathe through it. 

Awareness comes back slowly. He feels the chill of the air around him, the sound of his breath echoing in his ears. The world darkens through his eyelids and at first he thinks it's the clouds. But then he becomes aware of sound beyond him, low and far deeper than what he’s been getting used to. He turns instinctively, shooting before he even knows what's there.

All he knows is that it's not the wolves.

The roar is deafening on its own, full of rage and defiance, and his shots only seem to make it angrier. The beast is bear-like, towering over him with armored hide. Teeth and horns flash viciously in the sun and Shiro knows getting caught by them would be very,  _ very, _ bad news. 

He scrambles out of the way as it comes down, dropping heavy in the snow. He feels it in the ground, a tremor that has his heart responding in kind. 

This thing will kill him.

He shoots at its face, but aside from surface level marks, it doesn't do anything. It shakes off every shot, glaring at him with pitch black eyes, and if Shiro could even form the words to curse, he would. The bear charges, faster then he expects, and Shiro barely dodges to the side. The gun slips out of his grip. A horn flashes by his eyes. He only feels the sting across his cheek when the wind blows by.

He's barely found his balance when it comes back around. There’s no time to pick up the gun. He aims his Galra fist in the side of its face and hopes it's enough to redirect it. The hit lands and through some stroke of luck, it turns with a furious roar. But the framing near his elbow buckles and bends. There a bone chilling hissing pop and his hand drops limp. 

He stares at it with dawning horror as the beast lumbers to the side, growling and shaking its head. The fingers hang loose, the wrist doesn't even twist. The cloth is two seconds from falling off. 

The bear comes again, teeth first, and Shiro raises his arm without even thinking. The metal squeals beneath the pressure, seals coming loose and breaking altogether. Then he’s flung to the side and his arm erupts in pain. 

He rolls in the snow, disoriented and gasping as he tries to pull himself back to his feet. Pain sparks in his shoulder, shooting fire up his neck. But he can’t stay down. He has to keep moving. 

He puts both hands down, but something's wrong, off kilter.  He nearly falls to the right and ends up overcorrecting, falling to his other side instead. He’s able to catch himself there and he finally sees what happened.

He stares in dim horror at where his arm is supposed to be. It separated above the elbow, the support framing still attached. Blood seeps from the edges where the skin tore, painting the surface a slick red. 

It’s  _ gone. _

A cracking crunch has him looking back towards the bear, an odd numbness settling over him. Shiro locks on to his arm, trapped between the beast’s jaws as it chews, metal glistening in the light. 

This is wrong. 

He’s dimly aware that he’s shaking his head. It shouldn’t be that easy to destroy. How is it broken?

_ What happened? _

He can’t tear his eyes off his arm as it’s tossed away. It lands near the trees, immediately covered by the snow. Out of sight. 

‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ his mind supplies, utterly unhelpful. He catches sight of the cloth a few feet in front of him. It's torn but mostly intact, and Shiro lunges for it. He gets another face full of snow but he has the cloth in his grasp. 

He can't afford to lose that too.

The beast roars at him, spittle flying, and Shiro knows he should move. He doesn’t know where the gun is and he doesn’t have an arm anymore. There’s no way he’s fighting it off. The ground vibrates beneath him, punctuating each thundering step as the beast charges him again. 

He needs to  _ move. _

There’s a growling snarl behind him. The beast rears on its hind legs. A flash of white streaks over his head and lands solidly against the beasts chest, sending them sprawling and lashing through the snow. Another come tearing out of the trees, snarling as it joins in the fray. 

Shiro tries to pull himself to his feet, but his balance fails him. His equilibrium is shot, sending him sideways back towards the ground. The third wolf is there, catching him under what’s left of his arm before he hits the ground. 

They can’t stay. They’re going to get hurt. It’s all his fault, he should’ve paid attention. 

He clutches tight to their fur, looking back towards the fight as one of the wolves yelps. They roll briefly through the snow, blood staining it bright red in spots. Part of their ear is missing but it doesn’t stop them from leaping back into the action. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m so sorry.” He doesn't even know if they understand but once he starts, he can't stop. He's apologizing even as the wolf starts to pull him away.

He can't tear his eyes from the fight. He needs to know if they make it out okay. They're barely holding it off, repeatedly getting pushed back and gaining new wounds each time. The beast just keeps getting angrier and angrier.

A crack and a cry makes him shocks him out of the daze. He yanks on the wolf's fur, digging his feet as one of them goes sprawling away. They -  _ he, _ Shiro remembers -  _ he _ staggers back to his feet but something's wrong. Even as he goes tearing back after the bear, no weight goes onto his front right leg. 

Shiro stumbles as the wolf keeps trying to guide him back and away but he can't leave.  _ They _ can't leave to let these two fend this beast off. 

“You need to help!” he gasps, yanking harder on the wolf's fur. They growl low in their throat but they don't shake him off. They turn them further away and Shiro yanks harder.

“Please!” he begs. There's another pained yelp as the other wolf gets thrown. Blood streaks behind them but it doesn't stop them from getting back up. They can’t keep doing this. He doesn’t want them to get killed for  _ him. _ Shiro plants his weight and pulls on their ear instead. 

“Help them!” He drops to his knees and points, hoping with everything he has that they understand. The wolf growls and shakes their fur out, not looking pleased in the least, but they go. They tear across the snow and leap onto the beast back, snarling and growling the whole way. He’s sure the fight can be heard for miles. 

It’s hard to watch. As much as he wants to help, Shiro knows he’ll just get in the way. He has no idea where the gun went and even if he did, the chances that he’d hit the wrong target are too high for him to take. So he stays low, trying to keep as far out of the bear’s sights as possible. 

With three of them, it’s not long before the beast is driven off. They chase it back into the forest, barking, growling, and howling the whole way. But it’s not dead, not even close. Shiro’s only relief is that he knows it’s not coming back anytime soon. 

He lifts himself back up as they return and his breath catches in his throat at the state of them. They’re hurt, ragged and bleeding, but they’re mostly whole.  The one that joined last makes it to him first, relatively unharmed compared to the others. The one that’s missing part of her ear keeps shaking her head, her steps faltering. Blood seeps into her fur but she doesn’t seem that concerned about it, and the one that’s limping trails behind, his leg clearly broken. 

Shiro chokes on a sob at the first press of a nose to his cheek. This is his fault. They got hurt because of him. He shouldn't have fallen behind. He shouldn't have gotten distracted.

“I’m sorry,” he says as they coax him to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he says as they whine in his ear. “I didn't mean to, I’m sorry.”


	5. A Thousand Lies

Mama Wolf greets them when they get back. Shiro looks up at her as she checks him over but he can’t meet the distressed worry in her eyes. It strikes him through the chest, guilt lodging in his throat. He knows she’s seen the others, he knows he’s to blame, but for some reason, she’s not chasing him out.

She worries at his shoulder and his side where the scabs tore in the attack, impossibly gentle and Shiro chokes on the sob. _“I’m sorry.”_ His voice cracks and he squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t have the heart to turn her away.

“Please,” he begs and like before, he’s still not sure what for. Some kind of respite, maybe. A break from everything that’s happening. He just wants to be home but he doesn’t know where home is anymore. It hurts too much to try and remember.

He’s guided to the back of the room on unsteady feet. The pups are there, too, he realizes after he nearly trips on one. They crowd at his heels, whining for attention until one of the other wolves grumble at them. Then they disperse but only long enough for him to settle on the ground.

He pushes them away at first. He doesn’t want to look at them, to see the open trust in their faces. Every time he goes to use his right arm, the feeling settles deeper. He should’ve stayed behind.

He has the cloth twisted around his hand, a reminder of _something,_ and he holds it close. He doesn’t remember much before the Galra, but he remembers a war and a team he was fighting with. He remembers a sense of purpose that seems foreign now.

How is he going to protect anyone like this?

He startles when a wolf steps behind him. It’s the one with the broken leg, the one Shiro followed in the first place, and he’s careful when he lays down. Shiro curls forward, trying to avoid contact, but he doesn’t move far enough. He still feels the warmth at his back.

“Why are you here?” he asks, glancing between the wolf’s leg and his face. “I got you hurt.” The wolf leans toward him and Shiro tries to lean further away but there’s nowhere to go. As soon as the wolf laid down, the pups came in and took up the rest of the space around him.

He licks at the scrape on Shiro’s face, and when Shiro doesn’t immediately pull away, he moves further. He goes down over his shoulder to what’s left of his arm, and cleans away the blood that’s dried in the seems. ‘You’re hurt, too,’ he seems to say, and Shiro bites his lip to keep from crying again.

“Okay.” He bows his head and turns his attention to the pups playing at his feet. He accepts the attention even when it moves on to places where he didn’t get hurt.

_Okay._

The wolf finishes eventually, either growing bored or tired, because he lays down his head and falls asleep after. Shiro starts tossing loose stones then to pass the time.

He’s not even close to sleeping.

One of the pups start bounding after the stones. After that, it becomes a game. They race to see who can reach it the fastest, falling over each other in a mess of white fur and excited barking.

Only one stays firmly planted at his side, head wedged in the crease of his hip. The one that found him and brought him here. The ‘dog’.

The only time it moves is when food comes. All of the pups run off at that, and Shiro takes the chance to relax and tie the cloth back on his arm. It takes some working and he needs to use his teeth but he gets it. The wolf groans, shifting his head to blink sleepily at him. There’s a question there, he thinks, something in the way his eyes don’t waver. Shiro nearly misses it, but there’s a faint blue glimmer in his third eye, washed out by the ambient light.

It’s not even just a greeting, but actual communication. Shiro shakes his head.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.” The wolf sighs and closes his eyes. The wet slap of fish in front of him makes him jump. He didn’t see her come up but the one now missing her left ear hovers over him, tail swaying gently behind her. Three fish lay flat on the ground, snow still sticking to the scales.

She watches him expectantly, her ears - what’s left of the one, anyway - perked high. He’s not all that hungry but with a face like that, there’s no way he’s not _trying._ She noses at his hair when he picks one up, her tail wagging faster before she sits down nearby.

This is the one that brought him the fish before, he realizes. She’s always been the one. She watches him eat in that not obvious but obviously watching sort of way where she sneaks looks out of the corner of her eye.

And he tries, he really does, but he's only got one hand now and getting to the meat takes more effort than he feels is warranted. He barely gets through half of it before giving up and doesn't even bother with the other two. She’s disappointed, he knows she is, but there’s a weight in his stomach that he can’t work around.

The pups come back to him yawning. They whine and groan as they drop around him, clearly ready for a nap. The ‘dog’ settles back at his hip and Shiro smiles. He runs his hand down their back, twining his fingers through their fur. All they do is press closer.

It’s not long before their mother comes for them. Mama Wolf nudges them to their feet, complete with a passing nudge for him, and ignores their complaints as she leads them back towards the den. Shiro blinks after them as he sinks into the warmth at his back.

It’s not just nap time, then.

It’s quiet, he notices. A lot of the pack is asleep, or close to it, and all that’s left is the sound of their breathing and the water. Honestly, he should probably try to sleep, himself, but with the course of the day, he knows it’s not going to be good.

He doesn’t want to hurt them more than he already has.

He spots movement out of the corner of his eye, strangely hurried for being so quiet and Shiro frowns. Mama Wolf is looking straight at him, coming with an intensity that has him tensing. It has the wolf behind him jerking awake and for an instant, he believes this is the moment where she chases him out.

But she stops.

She’s stiff, frozen midstep, and her eyes are wide as she looks him over. There’s that blue glow again but whatever she’s trying to tell him doesn’t register. She doesn’t look angry, though. If anything, she looks anxious. Her ears pull back and her head dips as she creeps forward, cautious.

The noise she makes is soft, a crooning call that he recognizes distantly. He's heard it before, he realizes as he feels himself relaxing. There’s a shift behind him then a gentle prod at his side. Shiro looks over and the wolf is looking at him through one tired eye. He pushes at Shiro until he either needs to get up or get knocked over.

Shiro gets up.

He wavers in place, glancing between the two, until Mama Wolf reaches him. She brushes against him, lets him cling to her fur as she takes him deeper into the caves. The further they get from the entrance, the more Shiro relaxes. He hopes this isn’t what they’d do if they were planning on kicking him out.

The pups are gathered in the middle of the den, already mostly asleep. One pops their head up only to yawn widely and drop back with a groan. A few of the older wolves lay against the walls, not asleep but not fully awake either. Mama Wolf guides him through and, at her urging, he adds himself to the pile.

She hasn’t stopped making that noise.

He doesn’t want to sleep here but she noses at him until he lays down. He pillows his head on his arm and curls up as much as he can. The less contact tonight, the better.

He doesn't notice when he does fall asleep. He stares at the walls over Mama Wolf’s back, tracing the mineral veins until he's seeing them even with his eyes closed. The colours start to shift, a dizzying blend of blue and purple that sets his heart racing.

He knows it.

But he's not there. He got away, he _escaped._ He's with the pack in their home. They took him in, they haven't made him leave. The Galra haven't found him again.

There's a low growl over his head and Shiro slowly looks up. Mama Wolf stands over him, teeth bared and stance wide. Shiro feels a chill settle in his veins. The white of her fur is highlighted by shining violet. There’s no warmth in her eyes, no sign of the wolf that took him in. She’s cold, unrepentant anger, a mother ready to defend.

She lunges and Shiro ducks. He brings his hands over his head as he drops to the ground and she sails over him. She collides with something behind him, something equally massive, or bigger even, but he can’t tell through the shadows. Teeth and claws and horns flash as they fight, their roaring anger vibrating in his chest.

He needs to go, he can’t stay, _they’ll kill him-_

Someone calls his name. Multiple people do, an echoing chorus from every direction. They distort and blend together as he tries to find the source, slowly backing away from the fight. He thinks he spots one, a faceless figure behind him, but the lights are blinding and between one blink and the next, they disappear.

He wants to cry out, to answer the voices that are looking for him, but calling attention to himself could mean death. He has no way to defend himself if the beasts turn on him. He’s trapped, unable to run, unable to fight.

Something flickers out of the corner of his eye but when he looks there’s nothing there. The voices have turned to whispers, distant echoes that he can barely hear. They’re leaving. His heart skips a beat then runs double time.

They can’t leave him, he’s still here!

“I’m still here!” he calls, running towards where he thinks they’re going. “Please!” he begs. _Come back!_

He doesn’t see the figure until he’s running through them. He chokes on his breath and falls to his knees from the shock, every limb trembling. They’re watching him he thinks, as he tries to catch his breath, but he can’t see their face to tell. The whispers are growing louder as more figures appear around him, fading in and out of focus.

Five - _six_ \- people surround him, and he should know them, he _knows_ he should, but he can’t remember their names. The question burns in his throat but the whispers culminate before he can get it out.

“Who are you?” they ask, quiet and deafening all at once, and the question dies on his tongue.

“I’m me,” he says, but it sounds flat. The figures all flicker. “I’m _me,”_ he insists, an edge of panic to his voice. The figures flicker again and all but one fade out.

“Who are you?” they ask, so quiet Shiro can barely hear it.

_I’m me!_

He wakes up exhausted.

There’s a heavy weight to his limbs that seems to drag throughout the day. Despite missing an arm, all of him feels ten times heavier. He sticks close to Mama Wolf as she keeps an eye on the pups, never straying further than a few feet.

They go out at some point, the overcast sky and low winds making it bearable. Even still, while the pups play in the snow, Shiro stays pressed up against Mama Wolf’s side.

The next day isn’t much better. If anything, he feels even more tired as the day goes on. The ‘dog’ pup stays by his side, practically laying on his lap every time he sits down. He’s thankful for that at least. He never feels as alone when they’re there.

He notices part way through the day that there’s always a wolf or two watching him. That blue glow starts up whenever they make eye contact. He’s not sure why, or what the point is and there’s really no way to ask. It’s during the third day that he puts it together.

They’re watching him like they watch the pups.

They check on him, they feed him, they make sure he’s always in sight. It’s a strange thought to swallow, a little demeaning if he’s being perfectly honest, but he can’t really fault them for it. It’s not like there’s much he can do while missing an arm and he’s already roughly the same size.

He puts up with it. Mostly because there’s nothing he can actually do about it.

Day four is when things change.

The pack is restless as soon as he wakes up. There’s an energy to them as they wander in and out, a certain level of excitement in their actions. There are fewer in the main room than he’s used to, and if he listens hard enough, he can hear howling echo from outside. It’s strangely eerie and Shiro realizes that he’s never heard them do it before now.

He follows Mama Wolf when she goes out, the pups on her heels. There’s a trail in the snow heading east and the only reason Shiro sees it is because there’s a wolf walking along it. There are no clear tracks in the snow. The clouds are thick, washing everything together in the diffused light.

A couple of the pups run ahead. They circle their packmate’s feet when they catch up before running further, barking and adding their own howls to the air. And it’s constant. When the voice of one wolf fades, another rises to replace it.

Mama Wolf pushes against his back before she steps over him, making her own way along the trail. A clear request to follow, if there ever was one. So Shiro jogs to catch up, falling into step near her head.

“Where are we going?” he asks, just for the sake of it. Mama Wolf stretches her neck forward before turning it into a shake that travels her whole body. Then she barks quietly and bends her head down to nose at his ear. It’s not an answer he can understand but he takes it anyway. He’ll just have to wait and see.

They walk for a while. It doesn’t take long for them to reach the trees and when they do, they veer south instead of north. It’s familiar enough territory that Shiro keeps expecting the bear-beast to burst out of the trees at any moment. The fact that it’s been a few days doesn’t put a damper on it. The longer it takes the more anxious he gets.

He stays on Mama Wolf’s left, keeping her between him and the forest. As they walk, the rest of the pups start to spread out.

One falls behind, not willing to keep up the pace Mama Wolf is tracking. At first, Shiro is worried until he looks back and sees another wolf come up over the rise. The other pulls ahead, running to various points of interest until Shiro loses it to the snow.

The one that stays is the one that’s stayed with him the whole time.

“Do you know where we’re going?” he asks them. They bark and whine, ears pulling back for a moment, and Shiro smiles ruefully. “Yeah, me neither.” He looks up at Mama Wolf and she noses at his ear again. He still doesn’t know what she’s trying to tell him with that.

It starts to get colder the longer they go. His suit doesn’t keep him as warm as it used to. He doesn’t really realize it at first, but he keeps walking closer and closer to Mama Wolf’s side. Eventually he’s walking under her and aside from a brief misstep, she doesn’t really complain. It goes like that for a while with Shiro trying his best not to get too underfoot. Even though he is, quite literally, underfoot.

There’s still no sign of the bear-beast. A part of him wonders if it really is gone.

Something catch’s Mama Wolf’s attention at one point. He doesn’t know if she hears it or sees it, but none of it registers to Shiro. All he hears is the overarching howling in the air.

She pauses mid-step, head lifted high. When she continues, her pace is faster. Faster than what Shiro’s willing to keep up with, and he ends up falling behind. The pup stays with him, looking between them curiously, and Shiro just shrugs.

He wants to follow, his own curiosity burns in the back of his mind. But part of him also suspects the bear-beast and he really doesn’t want to run into that again. It doesn’t take long for another wolf to catch up with them. They get a warning bark behind them before they brush shoulders with Shiro and both of them get sniffed at.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Shiro asks. They blink at him with heterochromic eyes, and the third one glimmers before they bark. Their ears perk up and their tail wags quickly behind them. Shiro smiles. “Great, is it good?” They bark again then lick a stripe up Shiro’s cheek.

Shiro sputters and stumbles back as he wipes his face. He stumbles further when he tries to use his other arm for balance and the dog-pup runs around to catch him at the hip. “Thank you,” Shiro laughs, patting them firmly on the back. Both of them whine.

Some of his worries fade when they part from the forest. The trail continues to head south but the treeline splits west leaving them to cut across the plains. It allows him to relax, at least for a bit. There’s a better chance that he’ll be able to see something coming.

The first gust of wind across the snow reminds him that the trees were also good for something else. He moves to the other side of his walking buddy, pressing close lest his left side freeze. He tries keeping his arm down at first, hoping the weight will keep his shirt pinned.

It doesn’t.

The wind is relentless, cutting in close and getting in every open crevice. So he presses even closer to the wolf’s side, lifting his arm to grip over their neck. It has the open tears directly against their side and if the wind does get in, it’s not as bad.

Which is good because this walk is actually starting to suck. They’ve been going for a few hours at _least,_ and he’s starting to get tired. The cold is part of reason and the wind makes it worse, but really, he just doesn’t have the energy. He doesn’t remember if he actually ate before they left.

He slips on something under the snow and he drops with a sharp breath and a curse. He latches on to the wolf’s fur, much to their displeasure, but it’s the only reason he doesn’t get a face full of cold snow. The dog-pup sniffs and barks around his feet and Shiro’s laugh is a bit sardonic.

“I’m fine,” he tells them as he gets himself in a better position to stand again. He keeps his hold on the wolf’s fur just so he can retain his balance, but he doesn’t pull himself up yet. Now that he’s down, none of him wants to be up again. The wolves look at each other then, communicating something that’s completely lost on Shiro. In the end, the pup whines and runs ahead, disappearing quickly in the snow.

“What did you tell them?” Shiro asks as the wolf twists to sniff at him. They just groan, and the sniffing turns into pointed nudging. Shiro huffs. He doesn’t say anything else as he pulls himself back to his feet.

It’s slow going after that.

Another wolf catches up, calling softly as they come up on Shiro’s other side. Shiro expects them to keep going since he's not exactly moving the fastest, but the wolf keeps pace. It’s nice.

Both of them are roughly the same size, and they walk close enough together that he’s practically sandwiched between them. He’s not sure that he needs the extra help but he appreciates it all the same.

They come up over a rise and the first thing Shiro notices is the howling. It’s louder here, clearer, and it’s really not hard to see where it’s coming from. There’s another forest not much further ahead. But it’s denser, _larger,_ than the last one, looking like maples the size of redwoods, and the pack is milling along the edge. Most of them are huddled further in the trees.

A stop. A break. A chance to regroup.

“Fantastic,” Shiro sighs, mostly to himself, but both of his companions seem to agree. They walk just a little bit faster and before long, they’re also under the canopy and out of the wind.

The one missing her ear greets him, checking him all over and pushing him further in, in the process. He laughs under the inspection and he has to hold on just so she doesn’t knock him over. She takes him to Mama Wolf and the pups that have made it so far. They’re gathered somewhere in the middle of everything, and she waits for him to settle before trotting off.

The snow this far in has pretty much been trodden flat. It leaves a surface hard enough that it’s probably not going to melt into his clothes for a while, which is good. He’s pressed into Mama Wolf’s side with the pups on top of him, and nothing short of another bear-beast is going to make him move. He’s tired, and quite honestly, really wants a nap.

The howling makes it hard. No matter how nice it sounds, he’s still at the source of it and blocking it out is impossible. So he settles for listening to it and closes his eyes. It’s soothing in its own way. There’s a gentle cadence to it, a steady up and down that sets him at ease. Even if he can’t sleep to it, he can doze.

It’s a surprise when he opens his eyes again. The howling is still there but it’s gotten quieter. The final pup has joined them in their pile. The one missing her ear has come back and rests nearby. There are more wolves surrounding them in general.

There’s a fish about five feet away. He stares at it in confusion.

“Did I sleep?” he questions. His voice is rough, sounding very much like he did. All he gets is one of the pups snuffling in his ear. He must have. He doesn’t remember more of the wolves arriving or the fish being dropped at his feet.

But he is hungry, so now’s as good a time as any to eat.

Unfortunately, he has to dislodge the entire pile he’s under to get to it. The pups are disgruntled, whining and groaning as they paw at him. He’s apologetic about it up until they start barking sharply in his ears. Then he just moves faster and leaves them rolling over each other. Mama Wolf also takes the chance to get up, stretching with a groaning yawn before she wanders off.

Nap time’s over then.

He contemplates making a fire as he focuses on taking the fish apart. The heat would make it easier to descale and debone. With only one hand, he ends up needing to use his teeth and all that does is get things he doesn’t want between them. Like scales. And bones. The cooked meat would only be a plus.

Of course, like everything else, almost everything he’s learned about building a fire in the rough requires two hands. And a knife, and he definitely doesn’t have one of those.

He can figure something out. Maybe.

“Do you think a bow drill would work?” he asks as he picks through his mess of a fish. The wolf next to him, the one missing her ear and his fish provider, lifts her head and blinks at him with sleepy eyes. “It only takes one hand to work it and I can use my knees as a weight. What do you think?” She puts her head back down and rolls onto her side with a groan.

Shiro snorts. “Good talk.”

The pups start bringing him things as he eats. Sticks. Some rocks. A few, more questionable things that he’s wary to touch as the list goes on. At first he thinks they want him to throw for them but they don’t really stick around for him to do so. They drop their gifts at his knees before scurrying off to find more. He’s pretty sure one brings back an egg.

He actually _wants_ to know where they found that one.

The more they bring back, the more Shiro gets his own idea. He may not be able to make a fire but that doesn’t mean he can’t gather the supplies. The sticks are great but most of them are wet. A forest this dense has to have dry grass somewhere. He gets his feet beneath him then piles his treasures together. He looks at his current companion.

“Will you watch these for me?” he asks, hoping she understands. The look she gives him is dry. The longer she stares at him, the more his hope wavers and he ends up gesturing over his pile with a strained smile. She wuffs and stands, shaking her fur out before going over to one of the other wolves. They groan when she nudges them and she keeps nudging them, even when while they stretch lazily.

When they open their eyes, they’re looking at Shiro. Shiro’s breath catches in his chest. He’s not sure what message is passed but they get up with little more than a grumble and walk the two steps over to him. Both of them do but while they drop back down in front of him, she comes around to pluck at his shirt.

Shiro almost topples over. He catches himself with a yelp and she tugs at his shirt again, a clear message to get up. So, she won’t watch his things but she’ll get someone else to. Shiro laughs, just a little bit giddy as he pushes himself up. These wolves truly are a people of their own.

But he got what he wanted. His things are safe while he goes wandering.

His fish provider becomes his escort and really, he’s not going to refute it. She trails behind him as he scavenges, a steady presence in the corner of his eye. He does find a bunch of dry grasses, sticks, and something bark-like. A surprising amount, actually, but he doesn’t have the means to carry it all.

He could probably fashion a bag out of his shirt. Tie the holes off or something since it doesn’t really keep him much warmer than the suit itself. But that’s a later project, something he can work on when he gets bored. For now, he needs to get as much quality kindling as he can. He takes what he can in his one hand, mostly things that will keep an ember for more than five seconds, and keeps going.

The view catches his attention while he’s scanning the trees, slices of sky between the trunks instead of more trees, and Shiro goes to investigate. Turns out, the forest backs onto an escarpment. The ground breaks suddenly into stone and drops, leaving open space that spans for miles. He leaves his bounty at the base of a tree and walks to the edge.

The forest continues below, just as dense as it is behind him. From this height, Shiro can see the valley it borders and a river that winds through it. In the distance, a solitary mountain rises and reaches for the setting sun between the clouds. Everything is washed in pink.

Shiro can’t help the breath of awe. Doesn’t even try to stop it.

The wolf comes up behind him and Shiro looks over as she sits. The view pulls him back, though, and he takes a deep breath as he soaks it in. He never imagined this place could have a scene like this.

“Is that where we’re going?” he asks. He’s quiet, like if he spoke any louder, he would break the serenity. The wolf sighs and a cold nose brushes his cheek. He looks back to see her tail swaying softly and her ear perked high. He’ll take that as a yes. He looks towards the mountain again.

The wolves have a destination but what about him? He doesn’t know where he’s supposed to be going anymore. He knows it’s not here, that it’s beyond the surface of this planet and beyond the system, even. But how is he going to get there if he can’t remember anything about it? The thought sours his tongue and puts a heavy weight in his chest.

He looks up and tries to see the stars forming beyond the gaps in the clouds. They’re faint, but they’re there, worlds and galaxies he wishes he remembers. The headache, growing familiar by the day, presses insistently behind his eyes.

“Do you think I can go back?” he asks, quiet. His companion whines. Shiro squeezes his eyes shut and reaches up to clutch the cloth. It’s as familiar as the stars and a past he can’t remember, a distant reminder of something warm. It almost feels something like home.

“Do you think they’ll understand?” He doesn’t even know who ‘they’ are, just faceless voices of people that he thinks are his team. The wolf is quiet. Shiro lets his breath out slow. He turns away from the view, no longer interested.

He gathers his kindling and makes his way back towards the pack.

They’re almost there when they stumble across something hidden in the trees, shrouded by the growing shadows. It’s a carcass, partially eaten, but Shiro recognizes it all the same. The bear-beast is dead.

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped until he’s being nudged around. His steps are faltering as he goes by, and a whine in his ear makes him look away. The pack killed it, he knows. Hours ago, before he even reached this forest. He resists looking back over his shoulder.

How many wolves did it take to over power it? He didn’t notice, didn’t even check to see if anyone was wounded when he arrived. Did anyone else even _get_ hurt?

It’s chilling to think about.

There’s nothing else, really, to distract him when they get back. It’s quiet. Most of the wolves are asleep and the rest are dropping off quickly. He was going to try his hand at a fire but doing that now would probably send them into a panic.

Not the greatest idea.

He draws figures in the ground instead, draped over the back of one of the pups as he waits for sleep to come. The lines are jerky and uncoordinated but the shapes take form eventually. Six of them. His team, his _family,_ even if he can’t place their names. Tears burn in his eyes as he draws stars around them.

A destination he can’t reach.

He grits his teeth and swallows back the lump in his throat, letting the stick fall out of his hand. Trembling fingers trace the lines, smoothing out the rough edges. His heart _aches._

_“I’m sorry.”_


	6. Down To My Last

He wakes up clutching the cloth around his arm, the strands of his dream slipping away with every breath. A memory of a passionate voice and spice on his tongue. Yellow and warmth. The more he wakes, the more disappointed he becomes. 

Breakfast will be fish. Again.

He doesn't get up right away, not even bothering to open his eyes yet. He takes the time to listen to the pack around him, to the soft growling on his left,  and the shuffling to his right. One of the wolves somewhere is snoring aggressively. Shiro sighs and opens his eyes to the canopy above him. 

The wind is gentle as it filters through the leaves. Bird song mixes with the wind and the sound carries through the trees. It’s almost surreal how mundane it is. 

He shifts, turns so he can look over his drawings from the night before. The pile moved in their sleep, he notices. He’s pretty sure the pup he’s on now isn’t the one he fell asleep on, but either way, it’s not that hard to find them.

They’re damaged but it’s to be expected. Grooves cut through portions of them, claw marks from someone’s paw as they moved in the night. Shiro carefully redefines the lines with his fingers. The figures don’t have faces, or any defining features at all, really. Just six people he can’t seem to remember with a vague notion of a team.

“I’ll keep trying,” he promises, whispering in the quiet of the morning. “I won’t forget you.” He won’t forget more than he already has. He owes them that much.

Howling rises in the air, soft and distant. Shiro sits up at the sound of it, straining his ears to find which way it’s coming from. It takes him a bit to pinpoint it since it doesn’t come from the wolves around him, but it echoes from the south. One of the wolves from the pack replies, their howl higher in pitch but just as long. 

It’s starting again. 

It takes no time at all after that for everyone to be up and moving around. Breakfast is had and Shiro watches while the pack slowly disperses. They’re going through the forest today, he figures, just from the direction they seem to be leaving. If he’s going to make a bag, now’s the time to do it. He abandons his fish partially eaten and takes off his shirt. 

Knotting the bottom would be the best plan. He can tie the arms to the ends of the cloth and use the neck hole as the opening. It shouldn’t be too hard. He brushes off the wolf when she notices and tries to get him to eat more. 

“You’re a real sweetheart,” he tells her through the fabric clenched between his teeth. “You’re great with the fish and everything but there’s only so much of it I can take.” She huffs down at him as she sits, looking thoroughly affronted. Shiro grins around the next knot and shrugs.  

He finishes while she hovers. Every so often, she tries to get him to eat again. Every so often, Shiro takes a bite. He doesn't finish the fish but he does finish the bag and he lines the bottom with grass to cover the holes. 

“That should hold, yeah?” He tests the straps before holding it up for inspection. She gives it a cursory sniff then stands with a snort. She shakes as she turns away and Shiro scoffs. “I know I stink, you don’t need to rub it in.”

He gets up to follow her, stopping briefly to pack up his pile of treasures and give pets to the pups as he goes by. None of them really look like they’re up to leave yet. They’re still eating and Mama Wolf watches over them as she waits. Dog-pup perks up when he splits away, whining as they look between Shiro and their mother. He’s not surprised when they decide to follow. 

“You good?” Shiro asks. Dog-pup barks. 

The day is noticeably warm. It’s still cool, but it’s a stark difference compared to the biting temperatures from the day before. The snow, sparse as it is, has begun to melt. It leaves the ground slightly muddy but not enough to make his feet stick. 

The trail follows the line of the escarpment a ways, too far for Shiro to see clearly. They have to go east until they reach a place that they can descend but he doesn’t know how far that is. The edge dips and bends, sending them back into the trees every now and then.

He gets bored quickly. There’s only so much to see after being in the same forest for a few hours. He starts throwing things for Dog-pup in order to keep them both entertained. Mostly sticks. Most of the time he gets them back but sometimes it’s different. Like rocks. Entirely different sticks. Some bark. 

Another egg. 

The game of ‘Bring Shiro Things’ continues, it seems. He holds on to the egg and takes up another stick on the ground to keep the game going. This stick comes back and Shiro huffs a little laugh.

“You really are like a dog,” he tells them as he takes the stick back. Dog-pup barks and grumbles at him. Shiro shakes his head and throws the stick. Dog-pup goes crashing through the brush after it and Shiro laughs again.

“This is crazy,” he says in a breath. It’s more to himself than anything, a thought of wonder and amazement that he’s even here. But his companion makes a noise and it sounds like a question. Shiro looks up to find her looking down, watching him. She makes the noise again and her third eye glimmers. Shiro turns away, staring at the ground but not really seeing as he bites the inside of his lip. 

“I just… I never expected to be here,” he admits. It feels a bit silly, to be talking to a wolf, but they seem to understand him so far. It’s not like they're going to tell anyone. 

“I left home to find answers for my people. It was supposed to be a survey. Get there, analyze some ice, go home. Instead, we fell into a war. The Galra were there and we never even knew.”

He clenches his hands–  _ his hand, _ he's only got the one now– and closes his eyes against the ache in his chest. “They did something to me,” he says. “I escaped once before. I found… a piece? I found a piece of a weapon and we were… We were using it to  _ fight. _ To try and stop what the Galra have been doing for thousands of years.

“There are civilizations lost to what the Galra have done. People that no longer exist because they didn’t have the means to fight. We were fighting to protect that, to keep anymore innocents from dying, and I just…  _ I left them. _ I left them and I don’t even know who they are anymore.” He gasps and the tears come suddenly, more that he can stop with one hand. He still tries.

“I can’t remember.” He shakes his head and sways to a stop. The headache presses insistently behind his eyes. “I should be able to remember, but the Galra did something to me and now I  _ can’t. _ I need to go back but how am I supposed to do that if I can’t remember where to go back to?” 

He turns, tries to see through the tears as he looks up to his friend. This sweet wolf that has kept him fed, protected him, and lost an ear because of it. “What does that mean for me?” he asks. “Are they even looking?” And he’s shaking. He’s shaking so much and there’s nothing he can do about it. She leans down and presses her muzzle to his chest. The sound she makes vibrates through him, a soft mourning croon that has him clutching her fur. 

“I keep trying but it hurts,” he gasps. He presses his face into her fur and holds on tight. “It hurts so much, I don’t know what to do.” She croons again and moves, shifting down and Shiro shifts with her until they’re both on the ground. 

“What do I  _ do?” _

There’s no answer. He doesn’t think there would be one even if she could speak. What more can he do aside from ‘keep going’, anyway?

They sit there as he gets his emotions under control. It doesn’t take very long, another wolf has yet to catch up and Dog-pup hasn’t come back yet. By the time they do, his eyes are dry and he’s working up the effort to get back to his feet.

He hears them coming through the brush, a series of rustling leaves and cracking branches before they burst out between the trees. At first he thinks it’s just a large branch clenched proudly between their teeth. But then it keeps coming until it looks like they’ve found an  _ entire small tree _ and it’s too much. Already drawn thin, Shiro can’t stop the laughter.

Their happy little whine is muffled by the wood between their teeth, determined not to drop it as they drag it closer. Shiro’s shaking his head as he tries to speak but it’s hard, his stomach is starting to hurt. “I can’t- I can’t carry that!” he gasps, even as it’s dropped next to them. “Look at me! I only have one arm! What am I going to do with that?” 

Dog-pup barks, seemingly unconcerned as they dance on the spot. Sweet Wolf stands with a groan and a shake, knocking Shiro over in the process but he rolls with it. He lays on the ground until he gets himself under control, dodging and blocking Dog-pup’s excited tongue. 

They don’t let up, even as Sweet Wolf starts walking again. Shiro tries to get up and follow and ends up sputtering after an errant tongue gets in his mouth. He rolls away spitting and laughing and they only get back on track when Sweet Wolf comes back.

She’s grumbling and groaning, even as she picks up Dog-pup by the scruff and carries them down the path. Shiro’s breathless as he gets back to his feet, jogging around the broken branch to catch up. Dog-pup whines and kicks, still caught by the scruff and Shiro shakes his head. 

“I’m not carrying that,” he says, and if he had a pocket, he’d shove his hand in it. He grips the strap of his bag instead. Dog-pup whines some more and squirms until Sweet Wolf lets out a short growl. Then they droop, pouting outrageously and Shiro grins. 

He still feels drained, like he could lay down and nap any second, but he doesn't feel as heavy. There’s a weight gone from his shoulders. It’s good.

* * *

Shiro hears it before he sees it. It starts soft, blending with the wind in the trees until it clicks as to what it is. The roar of falling water is a sound he hasn’t heard in ages, but it’s more than welcome. It echoes off the trees, making it hard to pinpoint, but the closer they get, the more it drowns out the howling. He can feel it in the air, a layer of moisture that settles on his tongue with every breath.

Sweet Wolf can sense his excitement. She keeps looking at him, keeps making soft little wuffs every time his pace picks up. It feels a bit like a mother telling their kid to wait but Shiro’s too impatient to get there to really care. When they do reach the drop, he’s in awe.

The trees split, revealing the river to the midday sun. It flows a good fifteen feet below them, wide and deep, and the falls curve around an uneven floor. Chunks of ice drop every so often and disappear into the mist which rises high, clouding the bottom in a haze of white. 

He wants a picture, desperately, but there’s no means to take one. 

He looks back, realizing Sweet Wolf hasn’t followed him, and he finds her waiting by the trees. She ducks her head down, third eye glimmering as she gestures to where the game path continues. Dog-pup pouts by her feet, probably because they were stopped from following Shiro. They whine and shuffle impatiently, and Shiro takes one last look at it before turning his back. 

It’s one view he never wants to forget.

The trip down contains an arguably better view, he finds. The path hooks around behind the falls, cutting deep into the cliff face. There are places where it tunnels, leaving small windows in the stone, and places where he feels like he could almost touch the water with how close it is. He doesn’t try despite how much he wants to.

The path cuts back before they reach the bottom, ultimately keeping them on the west side of the river. The roar is deafening when they get there, drowning out everything else. Shiro shouts, just to test it, and he can barely hear himself. 

He looks back when they get further away. They’re keeping to the water instead of trekking back into the trees so he can see the waterfall in its full glory. He spots a couple of wolves near the top, their fur a beacon in the sun. Even they look small compared to the full height of the falls.

He keeps glancing over his shoulder until the river bends out of sight of the falls. But the sound doesn’t fade nearly as quickly, bouncing off the trees as they walk. It’s soothing to listen to, and mixed with the rise and fall of the wolves’ howling, Shiro finds himself humming along. 

Dog-pup keeps bringing him things. There’s nothing nearly as drastic as the massive tree branch this time, all things Shiro’s able to put in his bag. More sticks usually. 

They do come back with one thing that Shiro takes interest in. It’s part of a shrub, he thinks, with small leaves and clusters of berries on the branches. They’re dark blue, almost black, and shaped eerily like blueberries, complete with the little crown. He picks one off and squishes it between his fingers.

The skin splits and the insides smear across his fingertips. It stains his skin immediately, colouring them a vibrant violet and the pale flesh inside is littered with seeds. Shiro’s brows raise and he blinks over at Dog-pup. 

“Are these safe?” Their head tilts as they blink back. Clueless, then. 

They look safe. They don’t have any of the common signs for poison and his skin doesn’t seem to be having a reaction. He licks of one of his fingers and is surprised again by the flavour over his tongue. Tangy and sweet with its own sort of deep flavour that he can’t really describe. It’s not a blueberry but if he’s honest, he doesn’t really remember what blueberries taste like. 

At any rate, it doesn’t set his mouth tingling so whatever it is, it’s safe for him as least. For now anyway. 

He licks the rest of it off his fingers, debating on whether or not he should eat more. He wants to. It’s good, a breath of fresh air compared to all the fish he’s eaten over the past week. Week and a half? Already he can feel his mouth watering in anticipation. The lingering taste is fading quickly. 

He doesn’t wait. 

He eats the next one whole, the seeds barely noticeable as it bursts over his tongue. He’s aware enough to notice Dog-pup wander off again before he’s focused entirely on the berries. He picks them off carefully, placing them by the handful into his bag. There’s enough grass on the bottom that he shouldn’t lose any if he’s careful. Then he breaks the branches down and puts those away, too.

He finds more along the way. The bushes blend with the brush and shadows but once he starts looking, they’re easy to find. They’re  _ everywhere _ , almost weed-like in how often they crop up. He collects a bunch, hopefully enough to last him when they eventually leave the forest.

Dog-pup still brings him things, even more sticks and strips of bark. And some fungus, he thinks, but he’s not about to try eating that. No eggs though, unfortunately. 

The trees are thinning when they catch up to the howling. The river has flattened and widened, spanning a good 50, 60 feet across and the water rushes by in shallow bubbling rapids. The banks are stone and gravel that mix with the dirt closer to the treeline. Further on, Shiro can see where the valley spreads on towards the mountain on the other side. 

“Almost there,” he murmurs to Dog-pup as Sweet Wolf trots into the middle of the pack. They greet her warmly, barking and whining happily with tails wagging. Shiro gets much the same treatment when he reaches them and he takes it with a grin and a laugh. 

All he can do after, is wait. There’s still a while yet before the rest of the pack trails in, and unlike yesterday, Shiro was near the front. a thought occurs to him before he even sets down his bag.

It’s, actually the perfect time to try and make a fire. 

He sorts through his bag as he settles a few feet from the treeline. He has… mostly everything to try and make a bow drill but if something breaks, he doesn't have any replacements. He looks at his spread and takes a deep breath.

“Don’t fuck it up, Shirogane,” he mutters to himself. 

The hardest part is getting the bow together. He has to make a string from the threads of the cloth and hope it’s strong enough that it won’t snap. Then that gets tied to the stick, and though it’s a struggle, he manages to get that and a dowel hooked onto it. 

The board he has is thin, nothing more than a wide piece of a broken branch that Dog-pup found. He just hopes that the grooves are enough to generate enough friction. To support it, he has another piece of wood–bark, really–and he hopes his knee is able to put in the right amount of pressure.

… There’s a lot of hope riding on this. 

He lets his breath out slow and settles into place. He’s got his kindling nest ready, everything’s dry. He just needs to make the ember. 

There’s a few false starts. His knee slips off a couple of times and the dowel slides occasionally, but he’s making progress. The wood is starting to turn black from the heat. His heart leaps when the smoke forms, but it’s thin. Wisps, more than anything, and inconsistent. 

He adjusts his grip for the cramp building in his palm and keeps at it. It’s slow going and he’s gathering some attention, but if he stops now, he’ll probably lose it. 

The wood breaks with a sharp crack, shocking and jarring all at once. He flinches hard, snapping the string, and the dowel shoots out, spinning fast towards the water. He gapes after it, knee throbbing from slamming into the ground, and he watches it disappear into the rapids. 

Gone.  _ Fuck. _

He breathes through the vice around his lungs, swallows the cry of frustration, and slowly sets the stick on the ground.  _ He was so close! _

Dog-pup looks at him, whining softly, but Shiro ignores them. He stands with a forced calm and brushes the dirt off his suit. Then he walks towards the water. 

It’s probably a lost cause. There’s no way a stick that light  _ wouldn’t _ get carried away, but he’s got to do something. He can’t just sit there. He steps in to his ankles, sending a school of tiny fish scattering, but he can’t be bothered about them. 

He looks, but like he already knew, there’s nothing. The rapids are just that. Rapid. Vicious in their appetite and taking anything that isn’t anchored down. He takes a couple more steps in, but all he does is almost slip on the rocks. The soles of the suit don’t have the most traction. 

There’s nothing aside from more rocks and fish anyway, so he gets out. He shakes his feet with the same voracity that he wants to shakes his fist. There's moss too, he realizes when some comes with him. He scowls at it but it’s not going to help him make his fire. 

A knife would be useful. Or something he could use in place of one. Something sharp. He looks at the stones beneath his feet and wonders how easy they would be to break. He flexes his hand. At this point, not really, but hitting rocks is better than nothing. 

He picks up one, large, kind of whitish, and searches for a sharp edge he can smack it against. A rock juts out of the ground, smooth with a narrow edge rising up. A shove with his foot tells him it’s not going anywhere. Perfect. 

The first whack startlingly breaks the stone into pieces. Shiro wobbles on the spot, nearly jamming his fingers when the rock splits apart and he drops them all to keep his balance. Bright white glares up at him from the ground, strikingly familiar, and Shiro blinks. He grabs one and turns it over in his hand, running his fingers over the fresh sides. 

It’s quartz.

He turns it over some more. This place has what’s necessary to make quartz? He takes up another piece to double check, and it’s the same. It’s  _ actually _ quartz.

The next best thing if he doesn’t have flint. Shiro grins.  _ Perfect. _

* * *

Shiro gets his fire. All it takes is some sharp rocks made out of quartz and the edges of steel from what’s left of his arm. It freaks the pack out at first. As they are, without opposable thumbs, they don’t exactly have the means. They’ve probably only seen it when the forests catch fire.

He’s only a little bit guilty. 

But with the fire, he can finally cook the fish Sweet Wolf gives him. The sharp edges even let him descale it without him getting anything under his nails. By the time he’s eating the pack has calmed from their panic, but each one that arrives still looks worried. 

It takes a bit longer for Mama Wolf to arrive but when she does, it’s preceded by her growling. He looks up as she heads straight towards him and yelps when she immediately bowls him over. 

“What gives?” he shouts but all she does is grumble in his ear. Her nose presses into every nook and cranny, inspecting old wounds and searching for new. 

“I’m not your kid,” he says but he doesn't try to stop her. There’s not much he can do and she lets up soon enough, anyway. But even as she leaves, he can tell she’s still upset just by the set of her ears. Her tail smacks against his side once as she stalks off and she drops beneath one of the trees with a huff. Shiro turns to Sweet Wolf nearby and sputters when she pointedly looks away. 

“Okay, maybe I should've waited for the fire,” he says, “but I don't see you complaining.” She lays her head down and lets out a deep groaning sigh. Shiro huffs.

The fire dies as the pack is settling to sleep and he can feel his own eyes getting heavy. He buries the ashes under a pile of rocks then wanders over to where Mama Wolf and the pups have gathered. She yawns at him, moaning at the end of it as he adds himself to the pile.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

But he remembers lights, blinding and impersonal. He remembers voices hovering over him, cold and clinical. They don’t talk to him, don't even acknowledge him whenever he makes a sound.

“Subject Y0XT35,” they say and something about that is wrong. 

“I'm Shiro,” he says. They don’t hear him. He can't even hear himself. 

It’s cold. 

“Initialization corrupted,” they say. It feels  _ wrong. _ “Operation Kuron, stage 2 incomplete.”

_ “I’m Shiro.” _

_ … Right? _

_ It’s so cold.  _

He wakes up in tears, breath hitching in the quiet. Whispers of ‘Kuron’ echo in his mind as he gasps up at the stars. 

“Kuron,” he repeats, trembling at the chill it sets down his spine. There's something familiar about it, less of a name, more of a word. He doesn't– he can’t figure it out.

The stars glimmer above him, gently misleading in what they hide. The Galra are up there, hovering,  _ waiting, _ for something _. _ He closes his eyes and presses his face into the fur under his cheek. He tries to the push the thought away but it’s persistent. 

_ What did they do? _

Shiro doesn’t remember falling asleep again but he wakes up to a cold nose in his ear. The wolves are already howling, another fish is waiting, and a good chunk of the pack have already left. 

All he wants to do is go back to sleep. 

The pup he’s laying on shoots off for the food as soon as he sits up and Shiro wakes up the rest of the way, resigned. Without a pillow it’s not worth it. 

He ignores the fish, not willing to put in the effort when there’s a pile of berries readily available. He eats what he has as he slowly wakes further. When he finally stands, most of the pack have left. 

He’s near the end of the train, when he leaves. The pair of wolves he’s with aren’t ones he’s especially familiar with but they keep an eye on him all the same. Both of their eyes are brown, warm like the sun washing over them, and gentle. Dog-pup is still with him and at this point, he’d be surprised if they weren’t.

They cross the valley by following the river. Once they leave the forest, there’s no obstructions and Shiro can see all the way to there the land rises again. The wolves haven’t made it that far from what he can tell. They’re white specks in the distance, moving forward at a steady pace. 

It's going to be a long day, he can tell.

They fall back to what’s becoming their usual pastime. He throws things and Dog-pup brings random objects back. He gets mostly stones with the occasional wiry shrub branch, but no more eggs, unfortunately.

The monotony of it lets him think, which probably isn’t the best thing to do, but there’s not much else to occupy himself. The wolves are vocal creatures but it's not in a language Shiro can’t understand. Beyond that, he can only focus on the overarching howling for so long. 

His thoughts drift back to his dream. While he doesn’t remember much of it, he does remember one thing. A word that he can't quite discern the meaning behind. He mutters it to himself, repeating it with different tones and inflections. It’s not Galran and it’s not English, but it’s familiar enough that it’s not translating. 

When it clicks, he nearly freezes in place. His step falters and Dog-pup whines before he forces himself to keep moving. He takes a deep shuddering breath and tries not to let it all out at once. He should've known the Galra would be so cruel.

Kuron. Clone. Just the implications make him sick.

Part of him hopes it’s the fear speaking. That it really is as far fetched as it sounds and there’s another, more logical reason. Like amnesia. 

But he’s dealt with that before. He knows he escaped the Galra once before and he knows, objectively, that things happened between his first capture and escape. Trying to remember that doesn’t give him a headache. It’s just blank, a passage of time he can only read in what his body shows him. 

This is different. Wrong.  _ Painful. _

There are holes in his memory, blocked with barbed wire and electric fences. Names and faces he should know are gone. Places he’s been, lost. And now he’s stranded with no means to retrieve them. 

He looks over each of the wolves, the two walking side by side in front of him and Dog-pup at his side. They're calm, completely at ease in their surroundings. 

At least it’s not deserted. At least he’s not alone. 

They stop for a drink and a break. The water pools away from the main flow, a good place to step in without fear of slipping and being dragged away. Another wolf is there and they get up when they arrive. They exchange a rumbling, glowy-eyed, greeting with the wolves he’s with before continuing south towards the mountain. 

They’ll be here for a bit, he figures. 

He takes the time to scrub at his hair as best as he can. It’s still cold, even if the snow seems to be melting, and five seconds in sets him shivering. He doesn’t give up, though. He’s sick of feeling like the bottom of an unwashed barrel and he’ll suffer a few minutes of cold to get rid of that. 

He stares at his reflection after he wrings out his hair, the surface of the water still enough that he actually can. His face is as he remembers it. The shape is the same, no new scars, no new spots, but… He tugs at a lock of hair, trying to remember how long it usually takes for it to grow. He blinks as water drips and obscures his reflection. 

It’s too… It's too long. Too different.

“I don’t think I’m Shiro,” he confesses to the water. It’s a horrifying thought, one that strangles his heart with fear and dread. Saying it aloud puts a sick twist in his stomach and he takes a shuddering breath. He sits back slowly, covering his mouth with his hand to try and suppress the nausea. 

If he’s not Shiro, then who is he?

Dog-pup whines next to him and a paw neary bats him in the face before he flinches out of the way. As soon as he’s looking, they drop the rock in their mouth and back up, tail wagging. Shiro sighs, the smile at this point almost automatic, but it feels tight. Strained. He takes up the rock and tries to ignore how much he’s shaking. 

“Don’t suppose you care much, do you?” he asks. He gets a weird stepping action towards the rock in return. All they want to do is play, it seems. Somehow, it makes him feel better. He sighs, some of the tension releasing in his shoulders and he lobs the rock for them to go after. 

He watches them run for all of two seconds before he’s drawn back to his reflection. He tugs at the ends of his hair, wishing he could cut it. Unfortunately, no amount of sharp stones will be enough to do the job. It’s something he’ll have to deal with now.

He spots a wolf approaching from the trail and stands, anxious to keep moving. They greet him with a soft wuff and gentle shove before moving on. He’s the only ‘Shiro’ these creatures have ever known. Will ever, probably. If there’s some comfort to be had, it’s that.


	7. Break Of Day (Watch The Rising Sun)

The closer they get to the mountain, the choppier the ground gets. Rock formations rise and fall around the game path, sometimes even curving over to the point of creating small tunnels. It’s in one of those tunnels, pretty much at the mountain’s base, that the pack stops.

They’re spread out around the area, both under and on top the outcroppings. He finds Mama Wolf pretty easily, once again in the middle of everything. She groans at both of them when they come up, and he lets himself be subjected to the usual round of being checked over.

“I’m fine,” he says near the end of it, having staggered from her nose butting against him more than once. She dismisses him with a deep huff that ruffles his hair and he goes to sit somewhere more in the open.

It’s colder where they are. The mountain casts a shadow over part of the valley and after walking in the sun for most of the day, Shiro’s not ready for it. It’s takes a few tries but he eventually gets a fire started. It still causes some worry, some initial panic from the ones that weren’t there the first time, but it’s easier to calm them down.

He can see the last of the pack heading towards them from where he is. There’s four left, following the beckoning call in the air. He expects the howling to stop when they arrive, but if anything, it seems to get louder.

The cadence of it changes.

Before, it was a call. A signal. It was someone saying, ‘I’m here, come to me.’ Shiro turns and looks up the mountain. He can’t tell where it’s coming from anymore. His own pack is howling, yes, but now there’s others. They seem to come from above and around, suffusing the air with something like anticipation. Excitement, even.

It’s invigorating.

He basks in it, humming along as the sun starts to set and the stars appear one by one. He has a knee raised with his arm folded on top. His head is propped on his hand as he sways with every rise and fall. The fire is dying embers by the time it fades and Dog-pup has wandered off, probably to sleep.

A wolf butts against his shoulder with a groan, drawing him out of his drowsy state. It’s one of the younger ones and he unfolds himself as they nose at neck and hair. “Bedtime?” he murmurs, and they whine softly in reply. The nudging turns into gentle pushing and Shiro gets up with a groan.

Bedtime, then.

Like the night before, he buries the ashes under more rocks, then he’s led to the pile in the center. Mama Wolf raises her head briefly, long enough to give him her own cursory check, before she settles again. He watches the clouds across the sky until his eyes get too heavy to stay open.

When he wakes up, he’s not sure why. His heart’s racing and his breath is short, all signs of a dream. Warped voices linger on the edge of his consciousness. Shadows of his team calling his name. Searching.

They’re nightmares, really.

The sun is still behind the mountain, but it looks like it’s rising now, instead of setting. It can’t have been more than a couple hours. He takes a deep breath and buries the lingering want to cry.

He can’t keep lying here, he needs to move. He uncovers himself slowly, shifting limbs until he can escape without much disturbance. Then he walks.

He doesn’t go far, just climbs one of the outcroppings where he finds one of the wolves awake. A lookout, probably. They– _He_ , Shiro knows this one–looks at him balefully. He barks quietly in greeting, and Shiro goes to sit with him.

He sits with his legs hanging over the edge, kicking his feet in the open air for something to do. The wolf sighs and shifts. They don’t touch, but he’s close enough now that Shiro can feel the warmth. He soaks it in and watches the stars as they disappear again.

He wonders if his team even knows he’s here. Or that he’s missing at all. Or– His stomach twists and he swallows back the bitter taste in the back of his throat. Do they even know he exists?

“I miss them,” he says. He tries to be quiet but he startles himself with his own volume. He swallows thickly, reaching up to grab at the cloth before he remembers it’s not there anymore. He grasps at empty air once then grips over his shoulder when he finds it gone.

“I don’t even know who they _are_ , but I miss them,” he says and this time, it’s better. The wolf sighs again and Shiro leans back. The wolf is a solid weight behind him, his warmth a balm against the morning chill.

“Do you mind if I stay?” he asks after watching more of the stars fade away. He gets a gentle nose pressed to the side of his face, and Shiro closes his eyes to it.

He doesn’t think he falls asleep. He’s aware of every breath and the subtle changes of the pack around them. He notices when the howling starts up again, quiet with sleep.

‘Good morning,’ it says. ‘It’s a new day. Come this way.’

It takes over the entire mountain, it feels like.

He opens his eyes when the wolf shifts, blinking and squinting through the sun that now hovers above them. It’s only mildly disorienting. He sits up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as the wolf yawns and stretches.

They’re climbing the mountain today.

He drifts in a sleepy daze through breakfast, leftover fish from the night before. He watches as the pack mills around and eats their own food. He’s still yawning periodically when they start moving along the path.

They’re more compact today, he notices. The pack keeps mostly together as they climb as opposed to spreading out like they did before. It makes it easier and harder all at once. They’re all conscious of him, and the pups really, but navigating a mountain path around creatures with legs taller than him isn’t something he’s used to. He can’t help but wonder if he’s going to get accidentally stepped on at some point.

It gets colder the higher they climb. While it feels like yet another day of warmer weather, there’s more and more snow still stuck on the ground. He watches the valley sprawl below them, and the river as it veers east around the mountain.

The valley extends to the south, too, he learns. The path they’re on wraps around the side and he can see where the mountain range stretches back. He can also see more wolves, far more than he’s used to and all as white as his pack. They’re all just as determined to reach the top of this mountain.

“What’s going on?” he murmurs. It’s a question more to himself than anything. He knows they're gathering for something, some sort of reunion, he thinks. With this many wolves, it’s gotta be.

He tries to look up, to see if there’s more above, too, and ends up getting blinded by the sun. He knows there is, logically. The howling hasn’t stopped and it’s only gotten louder the higher they’ve climbed. At this point, it’s just a question of how many.

Mama Wolf comes up behind him, nudging at his back and huffing hard enough to displace his hair. He shouts, ducking away and reaching up to block his neck. She chuffs, almost sounding like a laugh as she steps over him, and Shiro huffs.

They reach their destination soon enough and it’s obvious as soon as Shiro sees it. The ground plateaus on the south facing side of the mountain in front of a series of wide mouthed caves. The place is massive, cutting into the stone in a way that looks natural and made at the same time. From what he can tell, there’s levels to it too.

And there are wolves, more than he can count, wandering in and out and resting on every rock and ledge he can see. It’s amazing, something he never expected to see except for in his wildest dreams. And even then, there’s no way he could’ve imagined this.

The more he looks at them, the more he realizes that they’re looking back. His heart skips to his throat and he ducks behind Mama Wolf’s leg. He may be safe with his pack but there’s no telling what the others will do. For all that they look like giant dogs, they’re still wolves.

They're still dangerous.

But all they do is look. There’s some wide eyes and tilted heads but none of them look particularly angry or offended  about it. In fact, they all look pretty tired, and their interest shifts as Mama Wolf leads him and the pups through.

Crossing the threshold to the caves is just as surprising as reaching the plateau. It's cavernous inside, twice as tall as the wolves even, and lined all through the walls is the same glowing mineral that was in their own cave. In the middle, the ceiling opens to reveal levels, all just as tall until it cuts off at the fourth. There, the sun filters in and highlights the upper levels.

In the middle is a pool, a spring, mostly held back by worn raised stone. Water flows in broken streams to the edges of the room and drains to some place he can’t see. Ramps ride the walls to the higher levels, and all around, are more wolves. One by one, they also notice him, from the walls, from the spring, even from above. Everywhere Shiro looks, there’s another set of eyes staring back.

They’re looking slightly more lively than the wolves outside, but they all look to be resting. Waiting. After the climb, Shiro doesn’t blame them. Now that he’s on level ground again, the burn of his muscles is shifting towards an ache.

Mama Wolf guides them to an open space along the wall and the pups all drop around her, yawning. Almost immediately, they fall asleep and Shiro, for all that he’s aching, isn’t actually tired.

He dithers for a second, shifting restlessly on his feet before dropping his bag next to the group. Mama Wolf gives him a look but doesn’t object when he splits off to explore.

Where they are, the howling takes on an ethereal quality. Haunting, almost. It enhances everything about the place, from the long abandoned rooms to the dust ridden hallways. It was a temple, he imagines, made by a people long ago. Maybe the same people that made his cloth. Maybe the people before them.

But there’s no denying it’s ancient, any organic material long since decomposed. All that’s left is a bare skeleton, now taken over by this society of wolves. There’s still an energy to it, though. Something set deep in the walls and lingers in the air.

He runs his hand over one of the glowing lines. Up close, they’re large, about as tall as his head, running like veins throughout the temple. There’s finer detailing in the atrium and individual rooms, some sort of symbolism lining the frames that he has no way of understanding. But mostly, they’re like this. A bold stroke through the core.

His hand comes away glittering.

He recognises it to some degree but he doesn’t know from where. There’s power in these veins, almost electric. The colour pulls at something in his memory but with it comes the headache and Shiro gives it up as a lost cause. He rubs the dust off and the particles drift shimmering to the floor.

He finds the atrium again, coming out on the third floor in full view of the sun. He can feel the wind here, cold as it filters through and lifts his hair from his face. The balcony that wraps around to the front is broken on one side, leaving the fourth floor inaccessible. A wolf lifts their head and looks down at him from above.

Inaccessible to him, anyway.

He walks around the other side, passed the ramp that leads down, and to the archways leading outside. He finds Sweet Wolf there, in full view of the sun, tucked next to a broken wall that blocks the wind. Her tail thumps against the stone as she looks at him, letting out a soft crooning noise to greet him.

He goes to sit with her, tucking himself between her forelegs with a sigh. It’s a good spot she’s found, he can easily see what’s going on below and the view is breathtaking. But the climb catches up to him. He doesn’t mean to, but with the warmth coupled with the chance to relax puts him to sleep.

He wakes up when Sweet Wolf starts howling. He can tell immediately that it’s been hours. The sun is on the horizon to the south, dipping slowly beneath it, and more wolves seem to have arrived. The wolf call has turned into one long note, and Shiro, despite having just woken up, can already tell that something’s about to happen.

It becomes an effort for him to not hold his breath in anticipation.

He sees something out of the corner of his eye, something amongst the stars as they slowly fade into view. A streak cuts across the sky, then another, and another, and Shiro’s breath comes out all at once. Above, in the slowly darkening sky, is a meteor shower. All around him, the wolves are howling, no longer one note but many. A celebration.

There’s so much ambient energy, his chest feels full to bursting. The urge comes to him suddenly, seizing his heart with need, and once he thinks of it there’s no way he can’t. It’s silly, but there’s no one here to see him do it.

He howls too.

It’s awkward. His voice cracks immediately and Sweet Wolf startles enough to nearly send him sprawling. But then she’s excited and Shiro doesn’t even get the chance to be embarrassed. She noses at him, making short calls between each careful nudge until he’s calling with her.

They howl until the sun dips below the horizon. Then it’s quiet and the air goes still. The meteors are still falling, soundless as they burn in the atmosphere. The air feels heavy with a familiar energy, every breath tingling on his tongue.

They’re waiting.

The young are below, he realizes. All of them, from every pack that made the journey here, are gathered in the middle of the plateau. There’s a ring in the stone that he didn’t notice before, its definitive edges worn smooth, and they sit just inside it.

A pattern appears out of the cracks and ridges in the stone, traced with the same symbols he found inside. It’s glowing, he realizes, the same blue glow as the mineral veins.

The same blue glow as their eyes.

The first light of the sun rises back over the horizon and with it, the call of the young. The white of their fur makes it look like they’re glowing, enhanced by the circle glowing beneath them. They get brighter and brighter with each passing second, until the sun, with what almost looks like a golden flash, climbs back over the edge.

The howling stops, and with the last echoing call comes the last meteor, disappearing into the light of the sun. Shiro watches as they open their eyes, blinking at one another curiously. He sees when their third eye opens for the first time, shining gold like the sunrise.

A coming of age ceremony.

Shiro grins, unable and unwilling to help himself. Excitement fills him as he watches the young clamor together, barking and crying in their own joy. It’s an effort to keep himself in place and not run down to join them. It was a coming of age ceremony, and _they let him see it._

* * *

They're hunting when they hear it, the roar of a ship flying over head. Their prey bolts, shooting through the trees and Shiro sighs, loosening his grip on his spear. He looks up and stands from where he’s crouched, trying to see where the ship is. A shadow flickers overhead, moving north to the tundra. It’s going too fast to see detail but it’s low enough that he knows he can follow it.

He wonders if it’s the same ship he saw leaving all those years ago.

Sweet Wolf trots up him, wuffing quietly at his hair. He nods and hooks his spear to the harness on his back. Then he latches onto the fur of her neck as she’s crouches and swings to her back. The third member of their party, Hunter, as Shiro’s taken to calling him, comes through the trees, grumbling at the loss of a hunt. But it’s not the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.

“Go back,” he tells him. “We’re going to check it out.” He gets a dry look in return but Hunter goes without complaint. This, while it won’t yield food, will likely give him answers.

He hopes.

They don’t have to go far. The ship finds the first wide patch of land to settle and on Sweet Wolf’s back, it only takes an hour to catch up. The first glance of it over the snow sets an ache in his chest. It’s familiar yet not, gleaming white even with the overcast sky.

It’s not the ship that left, not by a long shot, but it's one he hoped to find, once upon a time. At least, he thinks it is. It has the same feeling.

The names are on the tip of his tongue but they still won’t come. The headache that does come only further confirms a suspicion he already knew. It still hurts.

Something flies out of the crown of it while he’s still approaching. A speck compared to the overall size, but it quickly flies low and out over the horizon. Snow splits and parts like waves in its wake, leaving a marked trail Shiro’s probably going to find and follow later.

In the meantime, he’s going to make every effort to get as close as possible and hope that they notice him.

There’s no real sign if they do. The closer he gets, the more he feels his throat swallow his heart with anxious fear. And it feels like ages. He knew, objectively, that it would be massive but having an idea of something is nothing like the real thing.

It only took an hour to catch up visually but reaching it is another story entirely.

He only stops when the roar of another ship– _a lion–_ bellows overhead. The snow gets displaced in the whipping wind and Sweet Wolf has to crouch low to avoid being pushed back.

He feels it when the lion lands, like a drum that sets his heart racing. The Black Lion stands proud before him, looking down like a judge and Shiro swallows thickly as if he’s about to be found unworthy. He knows it. He knows, deep down, that this is what he was supposed to find. This is what he was supposed to _be._

A pilot. _A paladin._

The lion crouches down, it’s jaw opening to lower a ramp, and a man comes stumbling down before stopping at the teeth. Shiro recognizes him immediately. There’s some differences, the most obvious being the shock of white that covers his head and the arm. But he represents the truth. The answer to a question burned into his dreams and nightmares. He stares at Shiro in a strange mixture of horror and awe.

Shiro wonders what his own face looks like.

“You–” the man croaks and cuts himself off. His brows, as white as his hair, crease in the middle, distressed in a way Shiro can’t describe but there’s an echo of it in his chest.

This is it, he realizes. The moment of truth. Whatever happens, there’s no going back. Shiro pulls in a deep breath, and takes the plunge.

“I’m not you,” he says, and he can’t tell if it helps or hinders, the man’s expression doesn’t change. He hopes it helps. “For all that we share a name, I can never be you. I just…” He looks away, glances at the ground before looking up towards the ship. The Atlas, he reads.

How distinctly  _human_ _._

“I wanted to see. I wanted to remember.” He looks back to the man in the lion and blinks away the tears that burn in his eyes. “I could never remember.”

The man–Shiro, his name is Shiro, too–opens his mouth, but whatever he wants to say never comes. His head jerks to the side, glancing quickly into the lion. Listening. Then his jaw clenches shut and he nods.

“Come. _Please.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Voltron Gen Mini Bang](https://voltrongenminibang.tumblr.com) on tumblr with beautiful [art](http://machidielontheway.tumblr.com/post/176062062616/here-is-my-piece-for-this-year-reverse-gen-mini) by [Machidielontheway](machidielontheway.tumblr.com), go give her some love!


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